Los Padres ForestWatch, a local nonprofit conservation organization, has teamed up with the San Diego-based California Chaparral Institute to sue the U.S. Forest Service. The groups claim regulations approved by the service deny the public’s right to participate in land-use decisions impacting national forests.
The suit alleges that on Aug. 10 of this year, the Forest Service approved the Tepusquet Fuels Treatment Project in the Los Padres National Forest without preparing an environmental assessment, thus exempting the project from public notice, comment, and appeal.
The project is said to include clearing vegetation across more than 19,000 acres, which will require the use of chainsaws, dozers, and prescribed burning.
Jeff Kuyper, executive director of ForestWatch, said his organization’s main concern is that the move invokes regulations that allow the Forest Service to approve any project that doesn’t require an environmental assessment without opening it up for public comment.
“They seem to believe that the impacts [of this project] are so minor that they can just approve it without an environmental assessment,” Kuyper said.
He said these regulations are usually reserved for projects such as mowing the lawn at the Forest Service headquarters or repaving a road.
“And for some reason they did it with this project,” he said.
According to a press release from ForestWatch, the conservation groups believe portions of the Tepusquet project are appropriate, but disagree with other aspects of the project that extend several miles into the remote backcountry.
Had members of the public been able to comment on the project or appealed it, the groups state in the release, the plaintiffs could have attempted to convince the Forest Service to prepare an environmental assessment.
“We have lost so much native shrubland habitat in the region already due to human-caused wildfires. We’d like to help the Forest Service develop plans to protect what is left, but that’s difficult to do when we’re shut out of the process,” California Chaparral Institute’s executive director Richard Halsey said in a release.
The groups are asking the court to set aside the challenged regulations and documents for the project, and open it to public comment.
In response to the groups’ allegations, Forest Service spokesperson Andrew Madsen said he was unable to comment on pending litigation.
This article appears in Dec 17-24, 2009.