WildEarth Guardians

Friday, April 7, 2006
Coalition's Appeal of the Hyde Park Wildland Urban Interface Thinning and Prescribed Fire Project

Tree cutting and burning on nearly 2,000 acres adjacent to the Santa Fe Watershed and along Hyde Park Road is opposed by a coalition of local citizens and conservation groups
Contact: Wild Watershed

The Coalition contends that the Hyde Park project is a major federal action that will significantly affect the quality of the human environment. At a minimum the Forest Service should have prepared an Environmental Assessment (“EA”) to demonstrate that the agency took the required “hard look” at the project’s environmental consequences. The Forest Service should also have provided sufficient information so that the public could meaningfully participate in the decision making process. Instead, the agency “categorically excluded” the Hyde Park project from detailed analysis and disclosure resulting in violation of the applicable laws and regulations enumerated below. Therefore, the Decision Memo authorizing the project should be remanded and reversed and, at a minimum, an EA prepared to remedy these flaws.

View the appeal