U.S. Water News Online
LEWISTON, Idaho -- Frustrated over a two year delay in issuing a permit to Potlatch Corp. for its daily discharge of wastewater in the Snake River, three environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against several federal agencies.
The Idaho Conservation League and Idaho Rivers United as well as the Spokane-based Lands Council filed the lawsuit in Seattle.
The environmentalists claim the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have moved too slowly in their mandated consultations with the Environmental Protection Agency regarding a new waste water discharge permit for the company's mill at Lewiston.
``I think the Environmental Protection Agency has tried to do the right thing here, but for some reason National Marine Fisheries and the Fish and Wildlife Service have really dropped the ball,'' said Bill Sedivy of Idaho Rivers United. ``It's kind of been one excuse after another for not having this finished.''
The Potlatch mill discharges up to 40 million gallons of treated waste water into the Snake River near its confluence with the Clearwater River each day. The water can be as warm as 92 degrees.
The company's permit expired in 1997. In 1999 the environmental groups sued the EPA, saying the agency failed to meet requirements of the Endangered Species Act, to ensure the waste water was not harming fish.
A year later the groups agreed to shelve their lawsuit when Environmental Protection Agency officials began work on a new permit. A draft of that permit set a strict temperature standard for the company that would limit the temperature of summer time discharges to 68 degrees.
Potlatch officials said the new standard would require them to build a chilling plant to cool the water during and estimated the cost of such a plant at $25 million.
The draft was sent to officials at the federal fisheries services nearly two years ago, where it has languished since.
The agencies are required to study the permit and decide if it is adequate to protect the listed fish species. Officials from both agencies said they did not know when the consultation would be completed.
Mike Bussell, deputy director of the Environmental Protection Agency's office of water in Seattle, said his agency has been working with the fisheries services to speed the process and is anxious to complete the permit.
Bussell also said a reworking of Idaho's water quality standards could be slowing the process. The state is in the process of issuing new water quality standards for temperature that would take into account natural conditions that cause some standards to be exceeded.
The suit asks Federal Judge John C. Coughenour to find the federal agencies in violation of the Endangered Species Act and to order them to complete the consultations within 30 days of that finding.
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