League of Wilderness Defenders/Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. Connaughton

The League of Wilderness Defenders/Blue Mountain Biodiversity Project and the Hells Canyon Preservation Council (collectively “the LOWD plaintiffs”) appeal from the district court’s denial of their motion to preliminarily enjoin the Snow Basin logging project. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292 (a)(1). We affirm in part and reverse in part the district court’s order, and remand the case to the district court for the entry of a preliminary injunction, the scope of which the district court should determine on remand.

I

The Snow Basin project area encompasses nearly 29,000 acres of the Whitman-Wallowa National Forest (“the Forest”) in northeast Oregon, and the United States Forest Service (“USFS”) has been planning a logging project in this area since 2008. A draft environmental impact statement (“EIS”) was issued in March 2011, and the final EIS (“FEIS”) was issued in March 2012. One way in which the FEIS differed from the draft EIS is that one segment of the project, about 170 acres of regenerative logging, had been removed from consideration in the FEIS. After the adoption of the FEIS, in April 2012, the Forest Supervisor withdrew the Forest’s Travel Management…