Logging up to 9,000 acres of timber should be allowed under an Oregon project because opponents haven’t proven it violates environmental laws, according to a federal judge.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke has recommended dismissing a lawsuit that claims the North Landscape Project in Southern Oregon doesn’t comply with the Endangered Species Act or the National Environmental Policy Act.

Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and three other nonprofits allege the U.S. Bureau of Land Management relied on flawed reasoning in approving the project despite its negative effects on the threatened northern spotted owl, referred to as NSO in the decision.

The judge has now rejected arguments that BLM didn’t properly analyze the project’s impacts, finding that its “environmental assessment” was sufficient and lawful under NEPA.

“Plaintiffs may disagree with BLM’s substantive conclusions regarding the effects of NSO habitat removal, but their claim that BLM did not fully consider the issue is not supported by the overwhelming evidence presented by the government,” Clarke said.

Although the lawsuit claims that 9,000 acres of habitat will be eliminated “in one quick timber harvest,” the judge said he’s satisfied the project incorporates “design features and protocols” that ensure individual owls “will not be adversely affected and that timber harvest will not cause abandonment of any occupied site.”

During oral arguments earlier this year, the BLM said that only about 500 acres a year will be harvested from the “pool” of 9,000 available acres while spotted owl sites are monitored and protected from logging.

However, the plaintiffs accused the BLM of ignoring critical factors that should have been studied as part of a more extensive “environmental impact statement,” such as the risk posed by competing barred owls.

The BLM countered that such logging impacts have already been thoroughly examined in the “resource management plan” for more than 2 million acres of “Oregon and California Revested Lands,” or O&C Lands, that are dedicated to timber harvest in the region.

The judge has sided with the federal agency and the Murphy Co., a timber company that’s processing logs harvested from the project and intervened in the case.

“This court understands the importance of protecting the NSO and other threatened or endangered species,” he said. “However, Congress was clear through the O&C Act that timber harvest must happen. Every tree cannot be saved.”

The environmental plaintiffs also argued the federal government didn’t fully consider the spotted owl’s life cycle in the “biological opinion,” or BiOp, that determined the project won’t jeopardize the species.

“These aren’t minor deficiencies but fatal flaws in the BiOp,” said Sangye Ince-Johannsen, attorney for the plaintiffs.

The judge has disagreed with these claims, finding that BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service met the Endangered Species Act’s requirements in vetting the project.

For example, the Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t rely on the project’s “long-term mitigation or beneficial effects” in reaching its “no jeopardy” conclusion, Clarke said.

“Instead, FWS was candid in admitting that there may be some adverse effects from the North Project, but ultimately concluded that these effects do not rise to the level of jeopardy or adverse modification of critical habitat because harvest will not occur in occupied areas,” he said.

Though Clarke has recommended the lawsuit be thrown out, the environmental plaintiffs have until Sept. 7 to object to his ruling and the decision will ultimately be made by a U.S. district judge.