US Senator Ron Wyden has often been a hero to Oregon conservationists. In the past, he has worked to protect more Wilderness around Mount Hood, safeguard Bull Run and the Sandy River (the source of Portland’s drinking water) from pollution running off of logging roads, and to restore and protect old-growth forests in Eastern Oregon.

Unfortunately, in the last couple of weeks Sen. Wyden has flip-flopped on clean drinking water and logging. In the Willamette Week newspaper today, Oregon Wild and a coalition of 14 other rivers, wildlife, and public lands conservation groups are taking him to task in a full page ad.

Wyden has proposed controversial legislation in the US Senate that would grant logging roads an exemption from the rules of the Clean Water Act, putting clean drinking water, salmon, and other wildlife at risk. When heavy rains fall in Oregon, poorly maintained logging roads in the Coast Range, the Cascades, and elsewhere spew millions of tons of silt and sediment into rivers and streams. This sediment destroys salmon spawning habitat and forces cities and towns to invest in expensive filtration systems in order to maintain clean drinking water. Worst case, failing logging roads can lead to devastating mud slides.

 Earlier this year, the Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC, a non-profit organization established by a group of Lewis and Clark Law School professors, law students and attorney alumni), won a court case that challenged the Oregon Department of Forestry to do a better job of controlling pollution from logging roads. The ruling found that pipes, culverts, and ditches that send mud and sediment into rivers should be subject to clean water rules similar to those that have been followed by construction sites and highway developments for decades.

Wyden’s proposed legislation would overturn the court ruling and block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from developing pollution standards for logging roads. Worse, it is so broadly written that it could also exempt other logging activities, from herbicide spraying to clear-cutting and bulldozing areas for log decks, from the Clean Water Act as well.

It is a move akin to recent anti-environmental proposals originating with the Republican leadership in the US House of Representatives, and a jarring shift from Wyden’s historic work to protect Bull Run, and Portland’s drinking water, from exactly this kind of logging run-off.