Supreme Court of California

In a challenge to the approval of certain timber harvest plans, based on claims that the California Department of Forestry (CDF) failed to follow the law or its own implementing regulations when selecting geographic areas for assessing the cumulative impacts of logging on two animal species and in analyzing the effects of possible use of herbicides after logging, a ruling in favor of conservation groups is reversed where: 1) the analysis used by the CDF complied with the Forest Practice Act as to the geographic scope required for a cumulative impacts assessment; and 2) the CDF did not erroneously rely on the Department of Pesticide Regulations' regulatory program nor fail to conduct its own environmental impacts assessment since they continued with extensive discussion of the potential impacts, mitigation measures, and alternatives to herbicide use.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/22/2008
• Published 05/22/2008

Judges

• WERDEGAR, J.

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Michael W. Graf;  Law Offices of Thomas N. Lippe and Thomas N. Lippe, San Francisco, for Plaintiffs and Appellants., MacKenzie & Albritton and James A. Heard, San Francisco, for Sierra Club and Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants., Law Offices of J. William Yeates, J. William Yeates, Keith G. Wagner and Jason R. Flanders, Sacramento, for California Native Plant Society as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Plaintiffs and Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Bill Lockyer and Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorneys General, Tom Greene, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Mary E. Hackenbracht, Assistant Attorney General, Charles W. Getz IV, Gordon Burns and William Jenkins, Deputy Attorneys General, for Defendant and Respondent., Morrison & Foerster, Edgar B. Washburn, Christopher J. Carr, Shona L. Armstrong, William M. Sloan, San Francisco;  Jay-Allen Eisen Law Corporation, Jay-Allen Eisen, C. Athena Roussos, Sacramento;  Dun & Martinek, David H. Dun and David E. Martinek, Eureka, for Real Party in Interest and Respondent., Meriem L. Hubbard and Damien M. Schiff, Sacramento, for Pacific Legal Foundation as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Real Party in Interest and Respondent., Michele Dias for California Forestry Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Real Party in Interest and Respondent.