Court Backs Limits On Forest Service
The Supreme Court on Monday let stand an environmental ruling federal officials said could disrupt landmanagement efforts in nine Western states, including Washington.
The justices, without comment, turned down a U.S. Forest Service appeal challenging a federal appellate court decision involving protection of salmon habitat in the federally owned Wallowa-Whitman and Umatilla forests in Oregon.
The decision was applauded by environmental groups.
“We really feel it now is time for the Forest Service to stop fighting the law and start fighting to save salmon and stream systems,” Bob Doppelt, director of the Pacific Rivers Council, said from Eugene, Ore.
In 1992, the National Marine Fisheries Service listed the Snake River chinook salmon as a threatened species. More than 700 projects then under way in the two Oregon forests were found “likely to adversely affect” the salmon.
Those projects were suspended until the Forest Service could consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service, but about 1,700 other projects were allowed to continue after being deemed not likely to have any effect on the fish.
Environmental groups, including the Pacific Rivers Council, sued, contending the federal Endangered Species Act requires the Forest Service to consult with other agencies before making any initial judgments about what might threaten a listed species.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last July that the Forest Service must renew consultation on the 1990 plan to determine what effect it, in its entirety, might have on the salmon.
The appellate court rejected the agency’s contention that site-specific review is sufficient.
In the appeal, government lawyers said the 9th Circuit ruling threatened “far-reaching consequences” for the administration of more than 284 million acres of public lands in nine Western states: Oregon, Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Washington.
“The Court of Appeals decision threatens substantially to undermine the efforts of federal agencies to implement the requirements of the (Endangered Species Act) in a manner that does not unduly disrupt their management of public lands,” the appeal said.
The environmental groups, represented by the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, urged the justices to reject the government’s appeal.
They said the case is moot, or legally irrelevant, because the Forest Service has completed the courtordered consultation.