Klamath Forest Alliance v. U.S. Forest Service

The federal district court for the Northern District of California rejected challenges to the U.S. Forest Service’s environmental review of projects to remove dead and dying trees in nine National Forests in California after wildfires in 2020 and 2021. The court found that the record showed that the Forest Service considered a reasonable range of alternatives, took a hard look at potential environmental impacts, and reasonably determined that the project would not have a significant environmental impact. The plaintiffs had alleged that the Forest Service failed to properly analyze and disclose the project’s impacts on climate change and carbon storage, but the court’s decision did not address these issues.

Environmental groups challenged the U.S. Forest Service’s authorization of a roadside hazard tree project covering nine national forests in California. They alleged that the Forest Service failed to comply with NEPA when it approved the project, which would be “one of the largest, if not the largest, logging/vegetation management projects ever proposed in California’s history,” covering more than 400,000 acres. They alleged, among other things, that the Forest Service failed to properly analyze and disclose the project’s impacts on climate change and carbon storage.