United States Ninth Circuit

In an environmental groups' suit against the U.S. Forest Service over a restoration project in the Lake Tahoe area, the district court's decision in favor of the Service is affirmed where the Service analysis of the Angora Project's impact on the black-backed woodpecker's habitat was not arbitrary and capricious under the National Forest Management Act, because an agency's project is required to comply with 1982 viability requirements only to the extent they have been incorporated in the relevant forest plan. Here, the Lake Tahoe Forest Plan did not require the Forest Service to demonstrate at the project level that the Angora Project would maintain viable population levels of management indicator species, including the black-backed woodpecker.

Appellate Information

• Decided 09/20/2012
• Published 09/20/2012

Judges

• Smith

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel