ELR Citation: ELR 20569
No(s). 90-35796 (9th Cir. Feb 26, 1992)

The court holds that environmental groups have standing to challenge the U.S. Forest Service's decision to recommend against wilderness designation for 43 of 47 roadless areas in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest, but the Forest Service complied with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The court first holds that the environmental groups have standing. The court holds that plaintiffs have established personal injury. Plaintiffs' assertion that the Forest Service should consider all reasonable alternatives before making a decision affecting the environment is sufficient to confer standing. That the injury is merely threatened and contingent on the actions of Congress and other third parties is not dispositive. Although the Forest Service will have to take further action in compliance with NEPA to authorize site-specific development, the initial plan and wilderness recommendation are important decisions. Further, the underlying programmatic authorization would forever escape judicial review if the agency action could only be challenged at the site-specific development stage. Plaintiffs also have a sufficient geographical nexus to the area to show a personal stake in this case. Plaintiffs' members have filed affidavits naming specific areas that they visit. The court holds that plaintiffs have established that the injury is fairly traceable to the agency action and is redressable. The injury in this case would not have occurred but for the Forest Service's decision. That development may never occur or that redrafting the EIS might not change the Forest Service's recommendations is irrelevant. The court also holds that the case is ripe for review. The Supreme Court's decision in Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 20 ELR 20962, does not apply, because plaintiffs here are not challenging an entire program but rather its implementation in a particular instance.

On the merits, the court holds that the Forest Service's environmental impact statement adequately considered an alternative that calls for intensified timber production in already developed areas and designating as wilderness all of what are now roadless areas. The Forest Service also adequately explained its decision to reject this alternative. The court holds that the Forest Service was not required to undertake a site-specific economic analysis of timber value.

Counsel for Plaintiffs-Appellants
Victor M. Sher, Todd D. True
Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund
216 1st Ave. S., Ste. 330, Seattle WA 98104
(206) 343-73402

Counsel for Defendants-Appellees
Alan C. Raul, Gen. Counsel; Raymond Fullerton, Ass't Gen. Counsel; Michael L. Gippert, Dep. Ass't Gen. Counsel
Office of the General Counsel
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington DC 20250
(202) 720-8732

Steven P. Quarles, Thomas R. Lundquist
Crowell & Moring
1001 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington DC 20004
(202) 624-2500

Dorothy W. Nelson, J. (before Noonan and Thomas G. Nelson, JJ.):