Legal challenge to logging shot down

By Guy McCarthy

The Union Democrat, May 27, 2015

The Forest Service can continue to allow logging of trees burned during the 2013 Rim Fire despite a legal challenge led by out-of-county environmentalists, who argue that cutting down fire-damaged trees threatens spotted owls living in and near the burn area.

A decision by U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth District, judges filed Tuesday in San Francisco stalls the legal action for now.  People with the plaintiffs – the Center for Biological Diversity, the Earth Island Institute, and the California Chaparral Institute – can take their appeal higher if they want to.

“It’s an unfortunate decision from our perspective,” said Justin Augustine of the Center for Biological Diversity.  “We are still considering what we will do next.”

The plaintiffs’ options include appealing the case to the Supreme Court.

“In terms of appeals, we are at the end of the line,” Augustine said.  “We can ask the Supreme Court to hear our case, but the court can decide not to.”

Multiple Rim Fire recovery stakeholders, including Tuolumne County counsel, the American Forest Resource Council, Sierra Pacific Industries, and Yosemite Stanislaus Solutions, have allied with the Forest Service to oppose the legal action.

A total of 7,410 acres in the Rim Fire burn in the Stanislaus National Forest have been logged to date, said Barbara Drake, director of the forest’s Rim Fire recovery team.

“It never stopped,” Drake said.  “We only got wintered out for a couple of days.  We stopped for a couple of days because the roads were wet at one point earlier this year.”

Logging in the forest’s rim Fire burn area continued Tuesday and is expected to continue through Oct. 31, 2016, Drake said.  The Forest Service has approval to log more than 17,300 acres of the burn inside Stanislaus forest boundaries, Drake said.

The plaintiffs’ legal challenges started in September 2014, Drake said.

“Obviously we are pleased the court ruled in our favor,” Drake said.  “The plaintiffs just wanted a preliminary injunction until their case can be heard.  At this rate, the work could be done before their case can be heard.”

Judges with the Ninth Circuit in their four-page decision filed Tuesday listed several reasons for siding with the Forest Service.

• “Plaintiffs have not established a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims under the National Environmental Policy Act,” the judges wrote.
• “The Environmental Impact statement and Record of Decision adequately incorporated the 2014 owl occupancy survey results by explaining that the Forest Service had re-established six protect activity centers where the surveys detected owl presence,” the judges wrote.
• “The Forest Service also adequately addressed the scientific literature on owl occupancy in post-fire, high-severity burn habitat,” the judges wrote.

John Buckley with the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center applauded the federal court’s decision.

“CSERC sided with the Forest Service and Industry groups in support of the Rim Fire Salvage logging plan, because we believe that the Forest Service adequately considered logging impacts,” Buckley said.

“Our Center has worked to protect the California spotted owl and other at-risk wildlife species for more than two decades, so we clearly understand that important need,” Buckley said.  “But leaving vast areas in the Rim Fire blanketed with dead trees would create an enormous smount of woody fuel that could result in another devastating wildfire.”

The Forest service plan keeps logging out of known, core spotted owl habitat areas, and allows salvage logging in surrounding areas, a fair middle ground between wood production and wildlife protection, Buckley said.

“I am glad that the Ninth Circuit court affirmed the Forest Service logging plan,” Buckley said.

The Rim Fire burned more than 400 square miles, including portions of the Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National park, between August and October 2013.  According to the Forest Service, more than 80 percent of the Stanislaus Forest did not burn and remains vulnerable to bark beetle infestation, tree mortality, drought and competition for scarce water.