ELR Citation: 42 ELR 20199
No(s). 11-35659 (9th Cir. Sep 21, 2012)

The Ninth Circuit held that the U.S. Forest Service complied with NEPA and the NFMA when it approved a fuels reduction project in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. The project involves understory thinning and burning to mitigate the risk of wildfire in the Middle Fork Judith Wilderness Study Area. Despite environmental groups' arguments to the contrary, the Forest Service took the requisite “hard look” at the project's environmental impacts on elk hiding cover and goshawk populations under NEPA. The court rejected claims that the Forest Service’s aerial photo interpretation methodology was invalid and unreliable. The mere fact that the group disagrees with the methodology does not constitute a NEPA violation. Nor does the record contradict the agency's elk cover hiding analysis in violation of NEPA. The court also dismissed the groups' NFMA claims because the Forest Service reasonably considered the relevant factors that could have impacted the elk hiding cover and goshawk populations in its analysis of the project.