United States Tenth Circuit

In a suit challenging the Forest Service's approval of a timber sale project in a portion of a national forest in Utah, a decision upholding the Service's approval of the project is affirmed in part as to portions of the district court's order rejecting challenges concerning old growth and cumulative effects. However, the decision is reversed in part as to plaintiff's challenge to the Service's monitoring of certain trout and its analysis of water quality, and the district court's affirmance of the project's approval is vacated due to the Service's failure to consider or mention the "best available science" standard, which rendered its approval of the project arbitrary and capricious.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/30/2007
• Published 05/01/2007

Judges

• PAUL KELLY, JR., Circuit Judge., Before, KELLY, EBEL, Circuit Judges and, MURGUIA , District Judge.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Sarah Tal, Salt Lake City, UT, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Mark R. Haag, (Todd S. Aagaard, and Sue Ellen Woolridge, Assistant Attorney General, Environment & Natural Resources Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., and Elise Foster, Of Counsel, Office of the General Counsel, United States Department of Agriculture, Ogden, UT, on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees.