Ness Investment Corporation, and Canyon Lake Resort, Inc. v. United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, and Fred Wirth, Forestsupervisor

This appeal presents the question whether a federal court may review a refusal by the Department of Agriculture, Forest Service (forest service), to issue a special use permit to a so-called successor group of investors for operation of a resort in a national forest. The successor group of investors has appealed from an order of the district court granting the forest service’s motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction. We affirm for the reasons expressed below.

I.

On May 18, 1965, the forest service issued a twenty year special use permit to the Ness Investment Corpora tion (NIC), an Arizona corporation. The permit authorized NIC, subject to numerous terms and conditions, to construct, operate and maintain a resort at Canyon Lake in the Tonto National Forest, approximately forty-six miles east of Phoenix, Arizona. Among the duties imposed upon NIC through the permit were: keeping a responsible management official on the site or immediately available; providing a sanitation system and related facilities; constructing roads, parking lots, buildings, water systems, a sewage disposal system and a gas storage system; meeting a schedule for development of the site and for…