The Siuslaw project area west of Eugene is subject of a lawsuit brought by environmentalists against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The bureau made a motion to dismiss, but a U.S. magistrate judge recommended denial of the bureau’s motion moving the case forward. If the U.S. District Judge Michael McShane signs off, this court decision will set a new precedent that will allow people who live near areas or are affected to bring actions before any trees are cut down.

The Courthouse News reported that Oregon environmentalists inched toward a win against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Friday. According to the suit brought by Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild in 2022, the bureau’s planned “landscape” project in its Siuslaw project area violates the National Environmental Policy Act because the agency failed to prepare an environmental impact statement and consider the project’s overall impacts to the bureau-administered forestland. In doing so, the groups claim the bureau excluded dozens of previously identified environmental issues from its project analysis “on the grounds that they did not relate to the Siuslaw project’s narrowly defined purpose of timber production.”

By issuing an environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact, the bureau approved decades of logging projects on 13,225 acres across 10 separate watersheds and old-growth forest habitats. This inevitable logging, the environmentalist say, will harm several fish and wildlife species protected under the Endangered Species Act, including northern spotted owls, marbled murrelets and Coho and Chinook salmon.

According to Cascadia’s complaint, “another logging project slated near the Siuslaw project — the N126 project — will also overlap with the landscape plan and have significant cumulative effects on fish and wildlife, erosion and water quality, invasive species infestations and wildlife habitat.”

Government attorney Alexis Romero argued the lawsuit came at an “unusually early stage and without any imminent kind of sales,” thereby lacking the injury necessary for standing. The bureau’s motion to dismiss also highlighted how the landscaping plan does not automatically authorize timber harvests or other ground-disturbing activities that could harm Cascadia’s interests.

The Courthouse News reported that Judge Kasubhai disagreed with the bureau, finding the agency identified and mapped out specific logging tracts within its landscaping plan, making logging inevitable.

The judge rejected the bureau’s argument against plaintiffs’ interests, stating that the groups have demonstrated that some members have regularly enjoyed recreation activities in distinct geographic areas planned for logging.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

The Courthouse News said, Cascadia Wildlands’ legal director and attorney Nick Cady said he expected Kasubhai’s recommendation and that the bureau’s resistance to their claims is unusual given that Cascadia’s members recreate and live nearby the project area.

According to Cady, the bureau’s new strategy to plan very broad timber sales without pinpointing its exact planned parcels for logging is what prompted the lawsuit, particularly in how the agency is putting the “cart before the horse” by proactively claiming that its logging project wouldn’t affect the environment because they promise to follow the law.

In its announcement of the lawsuit, Cascadia said the bureau is required under federal law to consider the negative impacts of its proposed logging on the region’s communities against the benefits of timber volume generation logging. The organization further noted that many residents strongly oppose the logging project, believing it will contribute to drinking water contamination, increased fire hazards, loss of recreation, soil erosion, more road construction and the destruction of wildlife habitat.

On the reverse side of that argument is that forest thinning slows wildfires, which would increases carbon emissions, reduce air quality, and threatens loss of homes. And now there are reports of wildfire survivors with mental health issues.

If environmentalists win their case and coupled with the proposed Western Oregon Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), which is now projected to decrease timber harvest by 50%, the impact on funding for local governments could be astronomical.


--Dollie Banner

Post Date: 2023-04-26 16:42:14

Last Update: 2023-04-26 20:17:44