Environmental advocates claim a federal judge wrongly allowed the U.S. Forest Service to exclude three Oregon logging projects totaling 29,000 acres from environmental analysis.

The Oregon Wild and Wildearth Guardians nonprofits are asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to declare that logging on such a scale can’t avoid review under the National Environmental Policy Act.

“Ruling in favor of the Forest Service here would create an enormous loophole that is fundamentally at odds with NEPA,” said Oliver Stiefel, attorney for the environmental plaintiffs, during recent oral arguments before the 9th Circuit.

The Forest Service counters that the South Warner, Bear Wallow and Baby Bear projects, which range from 3,000 to 16,000 acres, were properly “categorically excluded” from detailed study under NEPA because they’re meant to improve timber stands and wildlife habitat.

“These projects are crucial to improving forest health and mitigating catastrophic wildfires on the Fremont-Winema National Forest,” said Ben Richmond, the federal government’s attorney.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Michael McShane determined the projects met the standards of “categorical exclusion-6,” or CE-6, under which certain forest restoration activities are exempt from NEPA analysis.

“The Forest Service found that all three projects would promote improved timber stand conditions, reduce risk of insect infestation and disease, and reduce fuel loads,” the judge said.

The environmental plaintiffs want the 9th Circuit to overturn that ruling, arguing the Forest Service is inappropriately applying CE-6 to large commercial logging projects that exceed the size originally envisioned under the exemption.

“At some stage in the decision-making, the agency must address the question of significance, and that’s what never happened here,” said Stiefel, the plaintiffs’ attorney.

The Forest Services claims projects with a significant environmental impact cannot evade NEPA review under CE-6, even if the exemption doesn’t have a maximum acreage.

The exemption only applies to restoration-related treatments, such as thinning, brush control and prescribed burning, and cannot involve herbicide spraying or the construction of more than one mile of roads, said Ben Richmond, the government’s attorney.

These parameters have “meaningfully constricted” the size of projects under CE-6 even without a strict acreage cap, he said.

“Plaintiffs cannot write an acreage limit into categorical exclusion-6 based on policy,” Richmond said.

However, if the 9th Circuit decides the U.S. Forest Service has unlawfully approved commercial logging under CE-6, the agency should still be allowed to proceed with other aspects of the projects, he said.

More than 90,000 acres are included in the three projects, which involve activities apart from commercial logging, such as prescribed burning, culvert replacement and meadow restoration.

Active management is needed in the national forest to prevent catastrophic wildfires, Richmond said. “The forest is just under tremendous stress.”