SALON

Monday, Jun 25, 2012 10:15 PM UTC

Court: Can EPA regulate mud from logging roads?

By

Topics: From the Wires,

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — The timber industry is hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will maintain business as usual on controlling muddy water running off logging roads into salmon streams.

The high court decided Monday to take up a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that federal regulators should treat stormwater on industrial timberlands the same as pollution discharged from a factory, changing the longstanding practice that treats it like water coming off farm fields.

The ruling on an Oregon case would apply to logging roads on state, private and national forest lands throughout the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit, which covers much of the West. Most of the roads are graveled, but some are paved or bare dirt.

Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, said increased regulation would cost money and offer conservation groups new opportunities for blocking logging without producing any cleaner water.

“Over the years, we have been able to continually improve our practices as we have learned more about the environment,” he said in a statement. “Water flowing from our forests is high quality,”

Paul Kampmeier, a lawyer for the Washington Forest Law Center, which represents conservationists, said the high court was presented with arguments urging them to take up the case from 26 states, including Oregon, as well as the timber industry.

“I think the defendant, or the petitioners now, did a very good job of making it sound like the sky is falling,” if the ruling stands, Kampmeier said. “Congress is political, and there is political pressure on EPA…I think we will get a fair and impartial ruling from the Supreme Court.”

The appeals court ruled in 2010 that the muddy water running off roads used in industrial logging is the same as any other industrial pollution, requiring a Clean Water Act permit from EPA.

The case was brought by the Northwest Environmental Defense Center in Portland, Ore., against the Oregon Department of Forestry over logging roads on the Tillamook State Forest.

The Obama administration petitioned the Supreme Court not to take the case. It argued that while it felt the appeals court ruling was wrong, there was no reason for the Supreme Court to get involved, because Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency were taking steps already.

Last May, EPA formally proposed to revise stormwater regulations to say logging roads don’t need the point-source pollution permits that factories must get, effectively blunting the ruling.

Instead, the roads would be regulated under a less stringent system known as “Best Management Practices,” where authorities set up guidelines for the design and maintenance of logging roads to minimize erosion that sends mud into rivers. EPA started reviewing how states and tribes handle the issue, and planned to put out new rules by Sept. 30, when an exemption for the timber industry enacted by Congress expires.

Dave Tenny, president of the National Alliance of Forest Owners, questioned the need for EPA to continue developing new regulations for logging roads now that the issue would be decided by the high court.

“The basic question in the case is what kind of deference the courts give an agency to interpret the statutes and their own regulations,” Tenny said. “The 9th Circuit interjected itself into the realm of the regulatory agency. And that’s inappropriate.”

Oregon Department of Forestry spokesman Dan Postrel said the current system has done a good job of protecting water quality for many years without federal permits.

Kampmeier said only roads with trucks actively hauling timber that discharge water into streams would require permits.

“We have confidence the Supreme Court will agree that when the EPA said discharges associated with industrial logging activities requires a permit, EPA is allowed to say that,” he said.

Asked whether it would continue working on new regulations, an EPA spokeswoman referred comment to the U.S. Department of Justice, which declined to comment on pending litigation.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Journalists file suit against Manning's trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
146 points147 points | comment
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of Americans struggle to afford food
122 points123 points | 12 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
122 points123 points | 89 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
112 points113 points | 32 comments
vote
Ted Cruz against the world - How the Junior Senator is igniting the GOP civil war
77 points78 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations