Capital Press
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Friday, November 26, 2021
Volume 94, Number 48
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EPA ditches Trump Navigable Waters Protection Rule
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
The Biden administration has
announced a proposed rule that
would reinstate the pre-2015 defi -
nition of “waters of the United
States” under the Clean Water Act,
recinding President Trump’s Navi-
gable Waters Protection Rule.
The Navigable Waters Protec-
tion Rule, or NWPR, reined in
the Obama administration’s 2015
waters of the U.S. rule, known as
WOTUS. It greatly expanded fed-
eral jurisdiction over bodies of
water.
During the Trump administra-
tion, the Environmental Protection
Agency and the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers repealed the 2015
WOTUS rule and re-instated the
pre-2015 regulations.
In 2020, the agencies redefi ned
the term “navigable waters” with
the Navigable Waters Protection
Rule, categorically excluding cer-
tain features from the defi nition,
including “ephemeral streams” —
temporary streams resulting from
precipitation.
In June, the agencies announced
their intent to revise the defi -
nition of WOTUS, saying they
had determined the NWPR sig-
nifi cantly reduced clean water
protections.
The new rule proposed Nov. 18
would support a stable implemen-
tation of “waters of the U.S” while
the agencies continue to consult
with stakeholders on the imple-
mentation of WOTUS and future
regulatory actions, the agencies
said.
Agricultural groups, however,
say the agencies’ action to replace
the NWPR is a mistake.
The American Farm Bureau
Federation said the EPA is
returning to an overly compli-
cated interim water rule.
“Overreaching
regulations
create major permit backlogs
for the federal government and
result in long delays for farmers
and ranchers who are working to
keep America fed,” said Zippy
Duvall, AFBF president.
Farm Bureau is particularly
concerned EPA is bringing back
the “significant nexus” test.
That test determines whether the
See Water, Page 7
LESSONS FROM
George Plaven/Capital Press File
A portion of the 60-mile
Lost River, which feeds
Tule Lake, is dry because of
drought in the Klamath Ba-
sin. Experts expect drought
conditions in much of Ore-
gon to persist despite re-
cent rain.
Drought
likely to
persist despite
recent rains,
experts say
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM
—
Recent
autumn rains are helping
Oregon’s water situation
but the state is still expe-
riencing a drought that
may persist into next year,
according to experts.
The drought that plagued
the 2021 water year —
which began last fall and
ended with summer —
was the state’s fourth most
severe on record and is con-
tinuing despite the rain,
said Larry O’Neill, the state
climatologist.
While the drought has
been intense, the state has
experienced below-average
precipitation for 16 years
in the past two decades,
O’Neill told the House
Water Committee at a Nov.
17 hearing.
“If it seems like Oregon
has been drier than normal,
it certainly has been,” he
said.
Aside from less rain in
spring and summer, the
drought was aggravated
by high temperatures that
caused evaporation, O’Neill
said.
Evaporation further lim-
ited water supplies, which
were already strained by
an early melt-out of snow-
packs across the state, he
said.
“Our snowpack melted
between one and three
DISASTER
What the Bootleg Fire reveals about forest management
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
S
PRAGUE RIVER, Ore. — Before
disaster struck, cattle rancher
Suzanne Gallagher said she didn’t
like seeing thinning or controlled
fi re operations on the grazing land
she leased from the U.S. Forest
Service. She believed the work was good but
found it disruptive.
“To be honest, I wanted them to leave,”
she said.
Then, on July 6, a lightning strike nearby
started the Bootleg Fire, a wildfi re that would
burn more than 400,0000 acres of south-cen-
tral Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National
Forest and become the third-largest wildfi re
in state history.
The fi re consumed hundreds of homes,
killed thousands of animals, both live-
stock and wildlife, and destroyed valuable
timberland.
Gallagher’s Whiskey Creek Ranch lost 25
cattle and forage to the fi re, but they found
that in the Black Hills around Spodue Moun-
tain, their grazing allotment hadn’t all burned
equally. Some patches were soot-black with
scarcely a living thing in sight, while in other
stands the ponderosa pines still boasted gin-
gerbread-colored trunks and green needles.
The diff erence lay in how each stand had
been managed before the wildfi re. Areas
where the Forest Service and Klamath Tribes
had thinned the forest and set prescribed fi res
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Pres
Suzanne Gallagher, 63, with her son
Jimmy Gallagher, 28, at Whiskey Creek
Ranch.
survived best.
Now, Gallagher said, she’s grateful for the
forestry work that saved the land she holds
dear.
“I love that country,” she said, lifting her
eyes to the hills.
The Bootleg Fire, though devastating, has
provided researchers with the opportunity to
study how various forest management prac-
tices infl uenced wildfi re behavior.
The Forest Service manages most of the
Fremont-Winema National Forest. Most
acres were untreated when the wildfi re
struck, but the Black Hills region, where
Gallagher’s cattle graze, had received small-
scale thinning and prescribed fi re treatments.
One other area that received treatments
before the Bootleg Fire hit was the Sycan
Marsh Preserve in the upper Klamath Basin.
Its 4,713 forested acres are owned and man-
aged by The Nature Conservancy, or TNC,
an environmental organization.
Before the wildfi re, TNC managed diff er-
ent blocks of trees — called project areas —
using diff erent management techniques. The
Bootleg Fire burned through all the stands,
but the aftermath looks drastically diff erent
in each.
Untreated areas were incinerated. Areas
that had been only thinned or treated with
controlled fi re survived relatively well. An
area that received both thinning and pre-
scribed fi re survived best.
“It’s a living laboratory,” said Pete Caligi-
uri, TNC’s Oregon forest program manager
and ecologist.
Although a quantitative assessment won’t
be completed for 12 to 18 months, TNC staff
released a qualitative assessment this month.
Already, they say, the trees tell a story.
See Disaster, Page 7
See Drought, Page 7
Brady Holden/The Nature Conservancy
Left: The Coyote Fuels Reduction Project, where both thinning and controlled burning took place before the Bootleg Fire. Right: The control
area where no thinning or prescriptive burns took place.
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