[p755] SNEED, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs sought to enjoin construction of a timber road in a former National Forest roadless area. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of defendant R. Max Peterson, Chief of the Forest Service, and plaintiffs appealed. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
We conclude that: (1) The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires the Forest Service to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that analyzes the combined environmental impacts of the road and the timber sales that the road is designed to facilitate. (2) The National Forest Management Act (NFMA) does not forbid construction of a timber road the cost of which exceeds the value of the timber that it accesses. (3) The Endangered [p756] Species Act (ESA) requires the Forest Service to prepare a biological assessment to determine whether the road and the timber sales that the road is designed to facilitate are likely to affect the endangered Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf, and construction of the road should be enjoined pending compliance with the ESA.
I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is another environmental case pitting groups concerned with preserving a specific undeveloped area against an agency of the United States attempting to obey the commands given it by a Congress which is mindful of both environmentalists and those who seek to develop the nation's resources. Our task is to discern as best we can what Congress intended to be done under the facts before us.
Plaintiffs -- landowners, ranchers, outfitters, miners, hunters, fishermen, recreational users, and conservation and recreation organizations -- challenge actions of the United States Forest Service in planning and approving a timber road in the Jersey Jack area of the Nezperce National Forest in Idaho. The area is adjacent to the Salmon River, a congressionally-designated Wild and Scenic River, and is bounded on the west by the designated Gospel Hump Wilderness and on the east by the River of No Return Wilderness. The area lies in a "recovery corridor" identified by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for the Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf, an endangered species.
The Jersey Jack area was originally part of the larger Gospel Hump roadless area, but when Congress created the Gospel Hump Wilderness in 1978, see Pub. L. 95 237, § 4, 92 Stat. 40, 43, it did not include the Jersey Jack area. The Forest Service's Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE II) in 1979 recommended that the Jersey Jack area be managed as non-wilderness. (For a discussion of RARE II, see California v. Block, 690 F.2d 753, 758 (9th Cir. 1982). In 1980, Congress passed the Central Idaho Wilderness Act, Pub. L. 96 312, 94 Stat. 948, which created the River of No Return Wilderness to the east of the Jersey Jack area, but left the Jersey Jack area as non-wilderness. The Act stated as one of its purposes to assure that "adjacent lands better suited for multiple uses other than wilderness will be managed by the Forest Service under existing laws and applicable land management plans." 94 Stat. 948.
In 1974, the Forest Service had produced the Nezperce Combined Timber Management Plan and Forest Road Program for the entire Nezperce National Forest. That Plan stated that some timber harvesting would take place in the Jersey Jack area, but did not discuss the proposed road. An EIS accompanied the Plan, but that EIS did not purport to satisfy the requirements of NEPA for individual areas within the National Forest. Instead, it stated that a "unit plan" would be prepared for each area, and that an EIS would accompany each unit plan. It further stated that roadless areas would not be developed until unit plans were prepared.
Subsequently, the Forest Service prepared ten unit plans and accompanying EIS's for areas in the Nezperce Forest. No unit plan, however, was prepared for the Jersey Jack area.
In 1976, Congress passed the National Forest Management Act. See 16 U.S.C. §§ 1600-1614. Pursuant to that Act, the Forest Service replaced the unit planning process with a single planning process for the entire Nezperce Forest. The Forest Service is presently preparing a Forest Management Plan and accompanying EIS, but neither the plan nor the EIS was complete at the time that this appeal was filed.