In 2004, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior eliminated a set of standards and guidelines called the “Survey and Manage standard” from the Northwest Forest Plan. The Survey and Manage standard was used to protect certain rare and uncommon species in forested lands in Washington, Oregon, and California. The standard consisted of mitigation measures such as managing known sites of certain species and conducting surveys prior to ground-disturbing activities.
The plaintiffs were a coalition of environmental and conservation groups that challenged the 2004 decision to eliminate the standard.
The Court found that the plaintiffs had satisfied their burden of showing that environmental harm was sufficiently likely to occur unless injunctive relief was ordered, both to the Survey and Manage species and the forests in which they could be found.
The Court held that the competing equities and the public interest weighed in favor of setting aside the 2004 decision and reinstating the “Survey and Manage standard”. The Court also found that the defendants should be enjoined from authorizing to continue any logging or other ground-disturbing activities on projects to which the standard applied unless those activities complied with the reinstated standard. The costs and burdens that could be imposed on Defendants and the Defendant-Intervenors did not outweigh the potential environmental harm.