Opinion ID: 3034729
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: preparation of an environmental assessment

Text: RATHER THAN AN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT [1] Native Ecosystems seeks to compel the Forest Service to prepare an EIS, rather than simply an EA, for the Jimtown Project. An agency is required to prepare an EIS where there are substantial questions about whether a project may cause 15146 NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS significant degradation of the human environment. See Idaho Sporting Congress, 137 F.3d at 1149. As we have explained: In reviewing an agency’s decision not to prepare an EIS under NEPA, we employ an arbitrary and capri- cious standard that requires us to determine whether the agency has taken a “hard look” at the conse- quences of its actions, “based [its decision] on a consideration of the relevant factors,” and provided a “convincing statement of reasons to explain why a project’s impacts are insignificant.” Nat’l Parks & Conservation Ass’n v. Babbitt, 241 F.3d 722, 730 (9th Cir. 2001) (citations omitted) (quoting Metcalf v. Daley, 214 F.3d 1135, 1141 (9th Cir. 2000) (alteration in original)). [2] In benchmarking whether the Jimtown Project may have a significant effect on the environment, we turn to the NEPA regulations that define “significantly.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27 (2000). Whether a project is significant depends on both the project’s context and its intensity. Id. A project’s intensity will be evaluated based on various factors, three of which are relevant to Native Ecosystems’s appeal: 1) “[t]he degree to which the effects on the quality of the human environment are likely to be highly controversial,” id. § 1508.27(b)(4); 2) “[t]he degree to which the possible effects on the human environment are highly uncertain or involve unique or unknown risks,” id. § 1508.27(b)(5); and 3) “[w]hether the action is related to other actions with individually insignificant but cumulatively significant impacts,” id. § 1508.27(b)(7). 1. FOREST SERVICE’S PROJECT-SPECIFIC CONCLUSION OF NO SIGNIFICANT IMPACT Native Ecosystems seeks to capitalize on the Forest Service’s thorough and candid environmental analysis by seizing NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS 15147 on various bits of information and data in the Jimtown Project NEPA documents (the EA, DN/FONSI, SIR and Biological Evaluation) to claim that substantial questions exist as to whether the Jimtown Project may have a significant effect on the environment. The Biological Evaluation and DN/FONSI acknowledged that the Jimtown Project may impact individual goshawks and their habitat, but determined that this impact was not significant. The presence of negative effects regarding the impact of the Jimtown Project on goshawks or even information favorable to Native Ecosystems’s position in the project’s NEPA documents, however, does not mean Native Ecosystems has demonstrated that the Jimtown Project’s impacts are “highly controversial” or “highly uncertain.” A project is “highly controversial” if there is a “ ‘substantial dispute [about] the size, nature, or effect of the major Federal action rather than the existence of opposition to a use.’ ” Blue Mountains, 161 F.3d at 1212 (quoting Sierra Club v. U.S. Forest Serv., 843 F.2d 1190, 1193 (9th Cir. 1988)). Further, in explaining the “highly uncertain” standard, we stated: An agency must generally prepare an EIS if the environmental effects of a proposed agency action are highly uncertain. Preparation of an EIS is mandated where uncertainty may be resolved by further collection of data, or where the collection of such data may prevent “speculation on potential . . . effects. The purpose of an EIS is to obviate the need for speculation by insuring that available data are gathered and analyzed prior to the implementation of the proposed action.” National Parks, 241 F.3d at 731-32 (alteration in original) (citations omitted) (quoting Sierra Club, 843 F.2d at 1195). [3] The use of the word “highly” in the NEPA regulations to modify “controversial” and “uncertain” means that infor15148 NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS mation merely favorable to Native Ecosystems’s position in the NEPA documents does not necessarily raise a substantial question about the significance of the project’s environmental effects. Rather, as our explanation of the NEPA regulations makes clear, something more must exist for this court to label a project highly controversial or highly uncertain. Simply because a challenger can cherry pick information and data out of the administrative record to support its position does not mean that a project is highly controversial or highly uncertain. [4] Under Native Ecosystems’s theory, any information included in an EA and its supporting NEPA documents that admits impacts on wildlife species and their habitat would trigger the preparation of an EIS. Not only would such a standard deter candid disclosure of negative information, it does not follow that the presence of some negative effects necessarily rises to the level of demonstrating a significant effect on the environment. We decline to interpret NEPA as requiring the preparation of an EIS any time that a federal agency discloses adverse impacts on wildlife species or their habitat or acknowledges information favorable to a party that would prefer a different outcome. NEPA permits a federal agency to disclose such impacts without automatically triggering the “substantial questions” threshold. In short, NEPA requires us to determine whether the Forest Service took a “hard look” at the environmental consequences of a proposed action. A “hard look” should, of course, involve the discussion of adverse impacts. A “hard look” does not dictate a soft touch or brush-off of negative effects. But such information does not automatically make the project “highly controversial” or “highly uncertain” for the purposes of determining whether substantial questions exist as to the significance of the effect. We turn then to Native Ecosystems’s various claims that substantial questions exist as to whether the Jimtown Project may have a significant effect on the environment. NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS 15149
Native Ecosystems asserts that as to the goshawks, the project is highly controversial and highly uncertain because the Forest Service failed to abide by a 1992 Forest Service report, “Management Recommendations for the Northern Goshawk in the Southwestern United States” (“Reynolds Report”). According to Native Ecosystems, the EA failed to address the Reynolds Report goshawk habitat recommendations pertaining to old growth, post-fledgling family areas, and canopy cover. This argument fails because the Forest Service referenced the Reynolds Report multiple times in the various Jimtown NEPA documents and specifically addressed each of these habitat recommendations. [5] Although the Reynolds Report recommends maintaining a certain percentage of old growth in a goshawk’s home range, it is significant that no old growth exists in the project area. As a result, the Jimtown Project is not capable of negatively impacting the old growth component of the Jimtown goshawk home range. It can hardly be said that a controversy or uncertainty exists under these circumstances. More pointedly, Native Ecosystems’s concern that the Forest Service fails to demonstrate in the EA that it has set aside sufficient old growth habitat for goshawks ignores the very purpose of the Jimtown Project—creation of a landscape that permits large trees to mature into old growth. The DN/FONSI explained that “[o]ne of the goals of the project is to create a stand structure that will allow old-growth to develop on the site over the long term and remain intact in the face of fire,” an objective that precisely meets Native Ecosystems’s concern. [6] Both the Biological Evaluation and DN/FONSI cite the Reynolds Report habitat designations, including the nesting, post-fledgling, and foraging area acreage recommendations, and discuss their impact at length before concluding that the Jimtown Project will not deprive the nearby goshawk home 15150 NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS ranges of these necessary components. Native Ecosystems complains that the Forest Service failed to specifically delineate a post-fledgling family area to be preserved around the 2000 and 2002 goshawk nest stand 150 yards from the Jimtown Project area. The Biological Evaluation and DN/FONSI establish that the Forest Service took a hard look at the available post-fledgling family area habitat in the vicinity of the Jimtown Project. Indeed, the Forest Service’s point-by-point response to Native Ecosystems’s post-SIR comments underscores our conclusion that the Forest Service took a hard look and fairly considered the Reynolds Report habitat recommendations: [T]he area proposed for thinning is not good [postfledgling family area] habitat . . . . The key unburned habitat needed to sustain breeding and provide core [post-fledgling family areas] for young goshawks is in the dense, multi-layered mature forest in the nest stand itself and in other such stands spread across north and north east slopes south and west of the project area. These stands are outside the proposed thinning area. As a result, the best habitat contributing to local [post-fledgling family areas] will be retained, and goshawks will be able to continue fledging young in the 2000/2002 nest stand. [7] Finally, Native Ecosystems urges that the Forest Service’s failure to disclose the canopy closure in the area before and after the project makes the impact of the project on goshawk habitat “highly uncertain.” Although the NEPA documents did not specify percentages of canopy cover in the same manner as delineated in the Reynolds Report, the Forest Service did not ignore the impact of changes to canopy closure in the project area. Nothing in the law or the science mandates wholesale adoption of the details of the Reynolds Report. Ultimately, while the Forest Service concluded that NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS 15151 the project would reduce suitable habitat by about 720 acres, due in part to reduced canopy cover as a result of the thinning component of the project, the project would leave intact sufficient acreage to provide for resident goshawks—about 6,780 acres of mostly forested habitat. [8] The Forest Service’s goshawk habitat analysis and consideration of the Reynolds Report demonstrate the project is neither highly controversial nor highly uncertain. Native Ecosystems’s effort to identify conflicts between the Jimtown Project and the Reynolds Report does not raise substantial questions that would trigger the need for an EIS. In fact, as the Reynolds Report explained, current forest conditions put the existing goshawk habitat in jeopardy and thus the proposed thinning and burning would actually be necessary to sustain goshawks and their prey. The push-pull situation of the goshawk is a reality not a fiction. While the Reynolds Report outlines ideal goshawk habitat conditions, including optimum old-growth, post-fledgling, and canopy cover prescriptions, the Report also recognizes that stand-replacing fires wipe out these critical habitat components in their entirety. The proposed Jimtown Project seeks to balance the sometimes conflicting goshawk habitat needs as outlined in the Reynolds Report, and thereby makes a reasoned and reasonable choice between the competing goals of preserving the goshawk’s current habitat and promoting a sustainable, longterm habitat for the goshawk.
Native Ecosystems also contends substantial questions are raised by the uncertain effects of the Jimtown Project on red squirrels, which serve as prey for the goshawk. In support of this challenge, Native Ecosystems seizes on the conclusion in the EA that certain species, including the red squirrel, would decline in the project area as a result of the changed habitat. 15152 NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS Native Ecosystems reads the EA as saying that red squirrel populations would suffer a “sharp decline” as a result of the project. The EA’s statement is much less dramatic in context: The abundance of several species would decline as a result of proposed changes in habitat structure, but it is unlikely that any species would disappear. Species that would suffer the sharpest population declines are those tied to the denser stands of mature trees and to the thickets of seedling and sapling conifers. These animals would shift primarily to unthinned reserves in and adjacent to the project area. Species likely to decline are the ruby-crowned kinglet, yellow-rumped warbler, white-breasted nuthatch, red squirrel, porcupine, and brown creeper. [9] The identification of potential declines does not permit us to leap to the conclusion that the EA raises substantial questions on project impact, especially where the EA also concluded that the thinned stand would continue to provide prey for goshawks: Overstory thinning would reduce the density of red squirrels—a primary prey item—and make the proj- ect area less inviting to foraging goshawks. The thinned stand would continue to support a variety of suitable prey species (hairy woodpeckers, mourning doves, robins, Townsend’s solitaires) and local goshawks might continue to exploit it. Where other prey species will be available, Native Ecosystems’s focus on the red squirrel does not demonstrate that the project’s effects are highly uncertain.
Native Ecosystems challenges the Forest Service’s reliance on the Bull-Sweats Project EIS as a demonstration that the NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS 15153 Jimtown Project will not have a significant effect on the environment. The 1996 Bull-Sweats Project was simply a larger version of the same type of fuels reduction project proposed for the Jimtown area. The Forest Service prepared an EIS for Bull-Sweats, which was incorporated by reference into the Jimtown documentation. In concluding that an EIS was not necessary for the Jimtown Project, the Forest Service observed that the proposed management practices were not unique and that monitoring of other projects, particularly the nearby Bull-Sweats Project, documented that such projects did not have significant effects. Native Ecosystems points to a Forest Service monitoring log to conclude, based on a lack of goshawk sightings in the Bull-Sweats Project area after 1998, that the project somehow eliminated goshawks resident in the project area prior to the Bull-Sweats thinning. The Forest Service offers a very different interpretation of the log, noting that field monitoring showed that goshawks in the Bull-Sweats area change nest sites each year regardless of logging activity and that goshawks are not averse to occupying nest sites close to logged areas. Further, according to the Forest Service, the monitoring data “demonstrates that thinning can be done in a way that will not eliminate local goshawk territories, but that large stand replacement fires will eliminate them.” (citations to administrative record omitted). We defer to the Forest Service’s explanation of the log. Native Ecosystems tries to create a facade of high controversy by citing to comments submitted by Dr. Sara Jane Johnson, a wildlife biologist and representative of Native Ecosystems. Dr. Johnson concluded the monitoring log demonstrated that the Bull-Sweats Project eliminated a pair of goshawks. “When specialists express conflicting views, an agency must have discretion to rely on the reasonable opinions of its own qualified experts even if, as an original matter, a court might find contrary views more persuasive.” Marsh v. Oregon Natural Res. Council, 490 U.S. 360, 378 (1989). The 15154 NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS Forest Service’s conclusion that the Bull-Sweats Project did not have a significant effect on goshawks and their habitat (and its reliance on this conclusion in the Jimtown EA and DN/FONSI) was not arbitrary and capricious. In summary, the Forest Service’s consideration and application of the Reynolds Report goshawk habitat recommendations in its NEPA documentation defeats Native Ecosystems’s attempt to characterize the Jimtown Project’s impacts as highly uncertain or controversial. Dr. Johnson’s interpretation of the Reynolds Report and goshawk monitoring data simply does not rise to the high level of controversy that was present in other Ninth Circuit cases where we faulted the agency review. See Sierra Club, 843 F.2d at 1193-94 (noting testimony from numerous experts that demonstrate the inadequacies of an EA); Blue Mountains, 161 F.3d at 1213 (explaining that a Forest Service EA failed to consider a report on postfire logging despite the specific directions of the regional forest supervisor to do so); National Parks, 241 F.3d at 736 (noting that eight-five percent of 450 comments received during administrative review opposed the EA’s preferred alternative). Nor will we “take sides in a battle of the experts,” id. at 736 n.14, as the Forest Service considered and applied the Reynolds Report and provided a thorough and reasoned explanation for its rejection of Dr. Johnson’s position. 2. CUMULATIVE EFFECTS ANALYSIS [10] Although we conclude that the project-specific challenges to the Jimtown Project EA withstand scrutiny, our analysis does not end there. In determining whether an action is significant for the purposes of preparing an EIS, an agency must consider “whether the action is related to other actions with individually insignificant but cumulatively significant impacts.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(7) (2000).9 The regulations further provide: 9 “Cumulative impact” is defined as “the impact on the environment which results from the incremental impact of the action when added to NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS 15155 Significance exists if it is reasonable to anticipate a cumulatively significant impact on the environment. Significance cannot be avoided by terming an action temporary or by breaking it down into small compo- nent parts. Id. In accord with the regulatory directives, the Forest Service offered extensive analysis of the cumulative impacts of the Jimtown Project. A review of the DN/FONSI reveals an articulate and careful cumulative effects analysis that took into consideration the impacts of the Cave Gulch fire, the 1986 North Hills fire, two minor thinning projects, and the BullSweats Project. The DN/FONSI recognized that within the cumulative effects area—defined as 29,900 acres—three goshawk home ranges exist, and within each home range, the Forest Service identified the necessary components of goshawk habitat. The DN/FONSI then detailed, from a quantitative perspective, the impact of the project on nest sites and acreage suitable as goshawk habitat. The Forest Service concluded the Jimtown Project’s impact on the immediate goshawk home range will not cause it to fall below the Reynolds Report acreage recommendations for nesting, post-fledgling family, and foraging areas, let alone result in a cumulatively significant effect when considered in light of other recent projects and fires in this area of the Helena National Forest. Because significant evidence in the record supports the Forest Service’s conclusion that the goshawk’s home range will remain viable under the Jimtown Project, we conclude that the Forest Service easily satisfies the standard we articulated in Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain I: “To ‘consider’ cumulative effects, some quantified or detailed information is required. other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions regardless of what agency (Federal or non-Federal) or person undertakes such other actions. Cumulative impacts can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7 (2000). 15156 NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS Without such information, neither the courts nor the public, in reviewing the Forest Service’s decisions, can be assured that the Forest Service provided the hard look that it is required to provide.” 137 F.3d at 1379.10