FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sen. Wyden Introduces Bill to Weaken Clean Water Act

Legislation would exempt logging roads from Clean Water Act, put drinking water, salmon, and streams at risk

Proposed legislation comes at the behest of the logging industry and would carve out exemption to fundamental federal clean water law.

Alaska Wilderness League * Cascade Resources Advocacy Group * Center for Biological Diversity * Columbia Riverkeeper * Earthjustice * Environmental Protection Information Center * Friends of Blackwater Canyon * Friends of the Eel River * Geos Institute * Idaho Conservation League * Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center * The Larch Company * Northwest Environmental Advocates * Northwest Environmental Defense Center * Oregon Wild * Pacific Rivers Council* Rogue Riverkeeper * Sierra Club * Siskiyou Project * Umpqua Watersheds * Washington Forest Law Center * Wild West Institute * Wilderness Workshop * Willamette Riverkeeper * Wildlands CPR

Nearly two dozen local, state, and national conservation groups today expressed deep disappointment with legislation introduced in Congress to weaken Clean Water Act protections for rivers and streams that flow through forest lands. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) joined with Senators Crapo (R-ID), Risch (R-ID), and Begich (D-AK) to introduce the measure.

“All across Oregon, and throughout the Pacific Northwest, decades of harmful logging practices have scarred the landscape with eroding logging roads, clear cuts and mudslides,” observed Ivan Maluski with Sierra Club. “The Clean Water Act could be a powerful tool to protect our rivers, salmon, and clean water from pollution from logging roads, but this legislation seeks to lock up the tool box and throw away the key.”

Similar to an anti-environmental rider moving through the US House of Representatives, the Wyden legislation would overturn a recent landmark court ruling by the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (NEDC v. Brown) that found storm water runoff and sediment from logging roads poses a serious threat to the health of rivers and streams, and should be subject to the rules of Clean Water Act. The proposed legislation would turn back the clock on clean water protection, and exempt erosion and sediment from logging roads from closer scrutiny under the Clean Water Act. Virtually every other industrial sector in the country is subject to the Clean Water Act’s long-standing and effective rules.

“Senator Wyden has often been a champion on the environment, but with this misguided legislation he is putting the Clean Water Act and other bedrock environmental safeguards at risk,” said Steve Pedery, Conservation Director for Oregon Wild. “Measures like this that weaken the Clean Water Act could lead to a tidal wave of attacks in Congress on the Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, and other environmental safeguards that are unpopular with special interests.”

The backers of the legislation exempting logging roads from the rules of the Clean Water Act cite a number of arguments, including claims that small forest landowners will be harmed and that it has been the long-standing practice for EPA and states to allow such an exemption. The legislation, however, provides a blanket exemption for landowners of all sizes – including federal and state agencies and industrial logging operations – and fails to recognize that under current policy water quality in many rivers and streams nationwide is being degraded by logging road impacts.

“It is very unfortunate and against what the American people want – clean water – that Senator Wyden and his colleagues have introduced yet another special interest loophole in the Clean Water Act that will lead to more pollution of streams and rivers,” said Joan Mulhern, Earthjustice’s senior legislative council. “We hope that if Senator Wyden does not withdraw this harmful legislation that it will be rejected in the Senate.”

The proposal to exempt logging road pollution from the Clean Water Act puts clean drinking water at risk. Over sixty-five million Americans in 3,400 communities across America rely on National Forest lands for clean, safe drinking water. When state and private lands are considered, thousands more communities are affected. Pollution from logging roads endanger safe drinking water by bleeding mud and sediment into rivers and streams, requiring local governments to invest in expensive treatment and filtration systems.

Logging road pollution also harms salmon, trout and other fish by smothering eggs, causing gill damage, burying food sources in mud and silt, and reducing available habitat. The impacts to economically valuable salmon runs put important commercial and recreational fisheries, as well as the thousands of jobs they support, at risk.

"Logging roads are a leading cause of water quality degradation on forestlands, and we need Congress' help solve this problem," said Mary Scurlock, Policy Director of Pacific Rivers Council, "Instead, this bill removes states' authority to target, through permit requirements, the most egregious -and fixable - kinds pollution from forest roads".

Read the full text of the proposed legislation to exempt logging roads from the Clean Water Act (CWA) here.

Read Senator Wyden’s statement regarding his proposal here.

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