National Forest Legal News Blog

League of Wilderness Defenders-Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. U.S. Forest Service, No. 10-6302-HO (D. Ore., filed September 22, 2010).  Environmentalists filed this case to challenge the EXF thinning and fuels reduction project in the Deschutes National Forest in Oregon.  The project includes thinning across aproximately 2,500 acres in the Pringle Falls Experimental Forest area.  The Forest Service conducted a full blown EIS, which the environmental groups are challenging.  The groups bring NEPA challenges to the EIS arguing that the EIS failed to consider reasonable alternatives by not proposing a "lighter touch" alternative and that the Forest Service failed to articulate its methodologies.  And, of course, the project will adversely affect teh northern spotted owl.