U.S. Water News Online
PORTLAND, Ore. -- A federal judge ruled that the state's water quality standards violate the federal Clean Water Act by not adequately protecting threatened and endangered species.
U.S. District Judge Ancer L. Haggerty ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue new federal rules in their place.
Haggerty said the standards issued by the state Department of Environmental Quality in 1996 requiring cool stream temperatures to meet the needs of protected bull trout and salmon were so defective they have been virtually useless since they were drawn up. For example, the state set a maximum temperature of 50 degrees for bull trout spawning and rearing streams. But the state never identified the streams.
``The court is left only to wonder how the 50º F. criterion for bull trout spawning and rearing has been enforced over the last seven years if Oregon has failed to identify the migratory corridors to which the criterion applies,'' Haggerty wrote.
The EPA approved the temperature cap although its own reviews suggested the state would be unable to apply it, he found.
Haggerty ordered the EPA to rescind its approval of the faulty standards and, within 30 days, draw up a schedule for enacting ones that meet the Clean Water Act.
``At a minimum, unless the state agrees to come up with new rules right away, the EPA's going to have to put something out instead,'' said Mike Llewelyn, administrator of the Water Quality Division at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in 2001 by Northwest Environmental Advocates of Portland against the EPA and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which had approved the EPA rulings on the state standards. The state of Oregon, the Oregon Forest Industries Council and the Northwest Pulp & Paper Association joined the case on behalf of the federal agencies.
The lawsuit alleged that Oregon's water standards are weak, favoring industry over the environment.
``People don't realize that the DEQ is frequently not a champion of the public interest and instead feels compelled to protect the polluters,'' said Nina Bell, executive director of Northwest Environmental Advocates.
EPA spokesman Bill Dunbar said federal officials recognize the importance of stream temperatures to protected fish and have been cataloging streams to make the state standards more workable. He said the EPA is consulting with the state to decide how best to comply with the judge's order.
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