Four California Forest Plans Sent Back to Drawing Board

Last week a federal judge determined that the Forest Service did not adequately evaluate the effects of allowing road building and other activites on almost 1 million acres where that activity had previously been restricted. You can read more about the decision here.

The court stated that "a decision to allow road construction or development on a roadless area is significant because it it more difficult, when it is possible at all, to recover wilderness after it has been developed."  And that "if the larger picture is not addressed at this level, it never will be, because site-specific plans do not have the scope appropriate to review the holistic impacts of land use zoning."  

The court also found the plaintiffs' argument persuasive concerning the range of alternative actions that were considered.  In multiple places the FEIS made a big deal out of monitoring and evaluation of impacts.  However, they provided only one option for how to go about implementing monitoring, even though the plaintiff's had suggested other viable options.  The court found that "the failure to present any alternatives pertaining to a critical decision violates NEPA" and that "the failure to analyze alternative regimes of monitoring and evaluation renders the public and decision makers unable to make a reasoned choice."

Back to the drawing board for the Cleveland, Angeles, Los Padres, and San Bernardino National Forests, and let's hope that this time they protect the resources they've been instructed to manage.