Judge rules logging projects can continue
Environmental group filing suit is appealing decision
MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST >> A federal judge has denied an environmental advocacy group’s request that the Mendocino National Forest halt thousands of acres of logging projects until it reviews their potential environmental impacts.
In a Dec. 4 decision, United States District Court Judge Edward M. Chen denied the Arcatabased nonprofit Environmental Protection Information Center a preliminary injunction against the forest service’s plans to sell about 7,000 acres of dead and atrisk trees within 200 feet of roadsides in the 2018 Ranch Fire burn scar area.
This decision allows the projects to move forward, but it is being appealed by EPIC. “We’re disappointed, but we’re in this for
the long haul,” EPIC Director Tom Wheeler told the Record-Bee. “We will continue to push for the Mendocino National Forest to follow the law.”
Public interest lawyer Matt Kenna, an attorney for the plaintiff, said an appeal was filed on Dec. 10, along with a brief restating EPIC’s central arguments that will “be the basis for the final decision.”
The Ranch Fire burned through nearly one third of the 900,000-acre national forest before it was contained in September 2018. Many of the roadways throughout the forest were subsequently closed for public safety. Despite the fire, the logging projects
under scrutiny would degrade the recreational value of the land and harm prime habitat for the threatened Northern spotted owl, EPIC claims.
National Environmental Policy Act-pursuant environmental impact review of the projects could help to identify other ways to deal with the dead and dangerous trees without taking the healthy ones, the group states in its complaint. EPIC member Kimberly Baker notes in a declaration that “alternatives (based on my and others’ comments) could include leaving the living trees standing, retaining more trees on the downhill side of the road and some of the downed hazard logs on the ground.”
In November, Chen granted a temporary restraining order for four of
the logging projects identified. But his December decision dissolves that order, said Kenna.
The decision concludes that the national forest’s utilization of an environmental review exemption reserved for roadside maintenance logging applies to the projects in question, despite EPIC’s argument to the contrary.
“While there is one case that supports EPIC’s position, recently-decided cases are in the Forest Service’s favor,” Chen states.
“Under established principles of administrative law,” Chen writes, citing one such recent case, “the Forest Service’s interpretation of its regulations is entitled to deference.”
EPIC argues that for the forest service’s projects to legally avoid environmental review, they should be
subject to a 250-acre limitation on “salvage logging” operations. But the national forest, calling the projects “roadside maintenance,” avoids this acre limit.
The court sides with the national forest, deciding that “EPIC fails to establish any significant public harm given the limitations imposed by the Forest Service.”
“We don’t believe that the forest service has followed the law,” said EPIC Director Wheeler. “It’s very difficult to receive injunctions. It’s a rare form of relief, but we believe it’s warranted in this case.”
According to Mendocino National Forest spokesperson Punky Moore, logging operations are “underway” in four of the projects noted in the lawsuit. A fifth project is expected to be “operating” by mid-February.