Columbia Basin Bulletin
December
16, 2005
Northwest Environmental Advocates this week filed a
lawsuit challenging Oregon's water quality standards, contending they pose a
hazard to the state's threatened and endangered salmon.
State water quality standards are mandated by the Clean Water Act and
establish requirements for industrial discharges, logging practices, and
other activities that affect water quality.
"Oregon's standards for the protection of salmon habitat and water
quality are like a piece of Swiss cheese - more loopholes than
substance," said Nina Bell, executive director of the Portland-based
NWEA.
"At every turn, Oregon's water quality standards preclude the actions
that are needed to restore clean water and available habitat to the region's
salmon. Salmon need cold, clean water in Oregon's streams and rivers,"
she said.
NWEA's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Portland against the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, challenges the agencies' 2004 approval of
standards established by Oregon late the previous year.
The Clean Water Act requires EPA to approve state water quality standards
and the Endangered Species Act requires NMFS and USFWS to review EPA's
action.
NWEA successfully challenged EPA's approval of Oregon's previous standards
on temperature, a legal action that led to the new standards subject to this
week's lawsuit.
The outcome of that lawsuit, decided in March 2003, required that new water
quality standards for temperature and dissolved oxygen be established for
Oregon's waters.