United States Ninth Circuit

In a suit alleging that the National Park Service failed to prepare an adequate Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) for the Merced Wild and Scenic River, summary judgment for plaintiff is affirmed where: 1) a 2005 Revised Plan did not describe an actual level of visitor use that would not adversely impact the Merced's Outstanding Remarkable Values because it required a response only after degradation has already occurred; 2) interim limits were based on current capacity limits and NPS did not show that such limits protect and enhance the Merced's ORVs; 3) the CMP was not a single, self-contained plan; and 4) a supplemental environmental impact statement violated NEPA because a "no-action" alternative assumed the existence of the very plan being proposed, the three action alternatives were unreasonably narrow, and for the first five years, the interim limits proposed by the three alternatives were essentially identical.

Appellate Information

• Argued 11/28/2007
• Decided 03/27/2008
• Published 03/27/2008

Judges

• WARDLAW, Circuit Judge:, Before: ALFRED T. GOODWIN, A. WALLACE TASHIMA, and KIM McLANE WARDLAW, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Peter M.K. Frost, Western Environmental Law Center, Eugene, OR, for amici curiae American Rivers et al.


• For Appellees:
  
• Ronald J. Tenpas, Assistant Attorney General, Environment & Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., David C. Shilton, Charles R. Shockey, and Elizabeth A. Peterson, Attorneys, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., Barbara Goodyear, Of Counsel, Field Solicitor, U.S. Department of the Interior, Oakland, CA, for the defendants-appellants., Julia A. Olson, Wild Earth Advocates, Eugene, OR, Sharon E. Duggan, Law Offices of Sharon E. Duggan, Oakland, CA, for plaintiffs-appellees.