Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center v. United States Forest Service

MEMORANDUM *

Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (“KS Wild”) brought this action in the district court seeking declaratory and in-junctive relief against the United States Forest Service’s planned restoration of four meadow sites in the Klamath-Siski-you National Forest (the “Restoration Project”) to their pre-1940s conditions. Prior to approving the Restoration Project in its current form in 1997, the Forest Service completed an Environmental Assessment (“EA”) in 1996 and a Supplemental Environmental Assessment (“SEA”) in 1997. KS Wild claims that the current Restoration Project violates the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), 42 U.S.C. § § 4321 et seq., because the Forest Service has failed to take the required “hard look” at “new circumstances [and] information” since 1997 to determine whether such developments are “significant” and require a new SEA. See 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9 (c)(1)(h); Marsh v. Or. Nat. Res. Council, 490 U.S. 360, 373-74 , 109 S.Ct. 1851 , 104 L.Ed.2d 377 (1989) (requiring agencies to take a “hard look” at new information to determine whether a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) must be prepared); Price Rd. Neighborhood Ass’n v. U.S.…