A Sacramento federal judge has thrown out a challenge by environmentalists to the U.S. Forest Service's effort to prevent a recurrence of the disastrous Angora fire near South Lake Tahoe.

The environmentalists argued the agency "failed to take a hard look" at the project's impact on a certain bird species, on future fire behavior and on climate change.

Not so, said U. S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. The agency addressed these issues "in proportion to (their) significance," he ruled.

One by one, Burrell shot down every aspect of the claim by Earth Island Institute and the Center for Biological Diversity that the service's assessment of the project's environmental impact is unlawful.

The 2007 Angora fire, determined to be human-caused, destroyed 254 homes and scorched more than 3,100 acres, including approximately 2,700 acres of national forest land.

A year ago, the Forest Service approved the Angora Fire Restoration Project to "reduce the amount of dead and downed trees" in order "to reduce long-term fuel (accumulation) to reduce future fire severity."

The thinning project calls for the removal of both live and dead trees. Twelve zones would be "retained as habitat for a diverse set of species," including the black-backed woodpecker. Most of the trees "will be hauled … for disposal at … biomass energy facilities."

On Thursday, Burrell granted the Forest Service's motion for summary judgment, ending the legal challenge at the district court level.

At the heart of the argument by the environmental organizations is the contention that the service violated the National Forest Management Act by failing to ensure the viability of the black-backed woodpecker, chosen by the service in 2007 to represent a much larger group of native species for environmental assessment purposes. The birds are dependent on dead and decaying tree parts, created by fires and called "snags," to provide prey and nesting sites.

The judge said in his 19-page order that the service was not wrong in concluding there was no mandate to assess the viability of the birds. "Nor," he added, "have plaintiffs cited any specific standard or guideline … that could be interpreted to incorporate the viability requirement."

The Forest Service rightly did not seriously consider preserving snags greater than 16 inches in diameter, Burrell said. He noted the agency decided such an action did not meet the goal of reducing long-term fuel accumulation.

The decision did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act, as argued by the plaintiffs, since the Forest Service is entitled to set some parameters and criteria, he said.

The plaintiffs further claimed that the Forest Service "biased its assessment … by not disclosing that future potential fire intensity would be lower under a 'no-action' alternative."

But Burrell pointed out that a purpose of the Angora project is to reduce fire severity, and he cited an authoritative study stating: "Fire intensity … is not a reliable indicator of fire severity."

The judge went on to reject the plaintiffs' claim that the Forest Service materially misrepresented the results of a study of fire-dependent, cavity-nesting bird species.

Likewise, he said, the agency did not misrepresent facts concerning black-backed woodpecker distribution, adding that current data "indicate that the distribution of populations in the Sierra Nevada is stable."

Burrell then debunked as untrue the plaintiffs' allegation that the Forest Service did not properly respond to comments on the Angora project by Chad Hanson, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who conducts research on fire ecology.

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