On Monday, a lawsuit was filed by Blue Mountain Biodiversity Project (BMBP) against the United States Forest Service (USFS) in the District of Oregon. They accuse the defendant of violating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), and surrounding their work on the Camp Lick Project in the Malheur National Forest.
BMBP is a non-profit environmental advocacy organization dedicated to the conservation of the natural ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest . The mission of BMBP, their complaint said, is to “protect and restore the biodiversity of the Blue Mountains region of Oregon and Washington and to educate the public about threats to forest ecosystems in Eastern Oregon.” They monitor timber sales and USFS activities in regional forests to serve this goal.
BMPB has participated extensively in administrative actions within the Camp Lick Project, a site for 12,000 acres of commercial logging, in order to protect their members’ environmental interests within Malhuer. The plaintiff said they have been involved in the project since 2016 and believe that USFS has violated multiple acts through their conduct. For example, USFS has made many amendments to their land and resource management plan, which provides parameters for the management of that national forestry area. This plan is required under the NFMA.
Site-specific forest plan amendments must have at least some characteristics unique to a site to support a site-specific amendment and are based on documented needs and conditions for the overall health and longevity of the particular forest, BMPB argued. The plaintiff believed that USFS did not make these amendments based on this criteria, but because they wanted to be able to log larger trees like the large grand fir in the interest of capital gain.
The plaintiff also accused the defendant of violating the procedures for these agencies set forth in NEPA. NEPA requires agencies to closely examine the environmental consequences in any environmental assessment (EA) before taking a major action. This includes considering all foreseeable direct and indirect impacts, as well as cumulative impacts. An agency must prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) when it makes a determination that the action has the potential to significantly affect the environment.
The plaintiff claimed that there are numerous instances where the defendant’s EA fails to or incorrectly accounts for potential environmental effects. When analyzing these effects, USFS allegedly used multiple geographic scopes to analyze the cumulative effects on different plant and animal species as well as the general terrain in order to paint a more favorable picture of their actions. These analyses were, according to the plaintiff, inadequate, arbitrary and capricious. The plaintiff said an EIS should have been conducted for this project and believes it would have prevented USFS from continuing the project if properly completed.
The plaintiff has asked that the court enter preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to ensure that the defendants comply with NEPA and NFMA, and specifically to ensure that they take no further actions toward proceeding with the challenged Camp Lick Project until they have complied with NEPA and NMFA.
The plaintiff is represented by Earthrise Law Center.
