Suggested caption: Under new forestry rules previously unprotected streams would get new protections.
CARL SEGERSTROM
THROWING
SHADE, OR NOT
Oregon missing out on EPA funds
for clean water programs
PHOTO: ED COOLEY
O
n Oct. 4 the Environmental Protection Agency an-
nounced it was granting $1.7 million to Oregon’s
Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to
help with projects and programs that reduce wa-
ter pollution. In the press release, EPA adminis-
trator Scott Pruitt says the “EPA is making investments like
this grant to help empower states who know best how to
protect resources, and grow their economy while solving
real environmental problems in local communities.”
But there’s a problem with Pruitt’s statement: The EPA
doesn’t think Oregon “knows best how to protect its re-
sources.”
Since 2015, the state has lost more than $1 million in
funding from the EPA’s nonpoint source water pollution
program because federal agencies say Oregon isn’t doing
enough to protect coastal watersheds from forestry prac-
tices.
Losing this money reduces federal funding for DEQ
staff and takes funding away from projects that promote
healthy watersheds. But federal agencies say significant
measures haven’t been taken to address the concerns of
federal regulators.
FORESTRY POLLUTION
According to EPA spokesman Mark McIntyre: “Re-
evaluation of Oregon’s program will begin when Oregon
informs the agencies that it has addressed all of the coastal
nonpoint program conditions and provides supporting doc-
umentation. The agencies continue to encourage Oregon
to continue to improve and refine its program to satisfy all
coastal nonpoint program requirements.”
Nonpoint sources of pollution are any pollution source
that doesn’t come directly from a single area, such as a
factory or sewage treatment plant. Pesticides, oil on road-
ways and sediment from landslides are a few examples of
nonpoint sources.
One of the most common causes of nonpoint source
pollution is the warming of waters that lose shade cover
due to human activities like logging, road building and
floodplain development.
According to a DEQ report published in June, pollution
from nonpoint sources accounts for nearly 75 percent of
state waterways that exceed legal pollution limits.
Each year since 2015, the EPA has reduced funding by
30 percent of the previous year’s grant level. The penalty
stems from disapproval of Oregon’s coastal nonpoint pol-
lution control program (CZARA) by EPA and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The federal agencies found that Oregon “has not im-
plemented or revised management measures, backed
by enforceable authorities” to protect riparian areas for
small and medium-sized fish bearing and non-fish bearing
streams; to address the impacts of forest roads, particularly
on so-called “legacy” roads; to protect high-risk landslide
areas; or to ensure adequate stream buffers herbicide ap-
plication, particularly on non-fish bearing streams.
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October 26, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
Industry groups and state agencies have pushed back
against the decision. In a March 2016 statement titled “Re-
futing the CZARA disapproval,” the Oregon Forest and In-
dustries Council states, “The federal agencies are in error,
and their continued focus on forestry is puzzling.”
OFIC states that “Oregon has a sound and thorough
defense of its regulation and outcomes around all issues
raised by the EPA and NOAA — a defense that is backed
by extensive research and monitoring.”
The organization argues that the goal of federal regula-
tors “seems to be the implementation of prescriptive regu-
lations rather than achieving positive environmental out-
comes based on rigorous science.”
SHADING THE WATER
One of the best ways to reduce these pollutants is by
planting shade cover along waterways and reducing runoff
by slowing down polluted water with berms and native veg-
etation that naturally filter water before it gets to streams
and rivers.
In the Eugene area, the Long Tom Watershed Council
receives grants from the EPA nonpoint source program that
aids them in partnering with local businesses and manufac-
turers to reduce water pollution.
But Oregon will keep losing money for these types of
projects if it doesn’t meet federal standards for water protec-
tion on the coast.
Though the state DEQ receives federal funding and is
responsible for administering water quality programs under
the Clean Water Act, Oregon state law gives the Board of
Forestry and Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) the au-
thority to set rules for logging near water bodies.
Coastal rivers are habitat for cutthroat trout and chinook,
coho and steelhead salmon — all of which are considered
“species of greatest conservation need” by the Oregon De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife. Elevated water temperatures,
sediments and herbicide levels in streams and rivers can
have harmful effects on these iconic and economically valu-
able species.
One of the principal means of protecting these fish and
the watersheds they depend upon is requiring a buffer of for-
ested area around streams and rivers during logging opera-
tions. Federal regulators listed buffers for fish bearing and
non-fish bearing streams as a primary concern when they de-
cided not to approve Oregon’s coastal water protection plan.
Both California and Washington have larger forest buf-
fer requirements and coastal pollution programs than are ap-
proved by federal regulators.
On July 1, the Board of Forestry put in place new stream-
side buffer rules that provide additional protection for rivers
and streams.
The board’s decision was informed by data from ODF’s
multiyear and multi-million dollar RipStream study that
tracked the impacts of Oregon Forest Practices rules for pri-
vate timberlands and compared them with ODF’s own man-
agement practices. The study found that Oregon’s laws for
stream buffers on private timberland did not insure adequate
protection for cold water.
In correspondence with EW, ODF public affairs director
Ken Armstrong writes that the Board of Forestry used the
study, “including its limitations and uncertainties, to estab-
lish new rules and best management practices to ensure that
forest practices meet the ‘Protecting Cold Water’ criterion
of the water quality standard to the maximum extent prac-
ticable.”
Implementing the new buffers, which will reduce the
timber that operators can harvest, is expected to cost timber
owners upwards of $100 million. Small timberland owners
will receive some exemptions under the new rules.
The new buffer rules put in place by the Board of Forest-
ry don’t match the buffer distance that ODF’s study models
found necessary to keep stream warming below 0.3 degrees
Celsius.
Data from ODF’s RipStream study found that, on aver-
age, a treed area of at least 90 feet was necessary to pre-
vent warming the water above 0.3 degrees Celsius. Under
the rules adopted by the Board of Forestry in July, medium-
sized fish bearing streams would get 80-foot buffers and
small fish bearing streams would get 60-foot buffers.
Small non-fish bearing streams, which were previously
unprotected, will get 20-foot buffers.
In testimony to the Environmental Quality Commission,
OFIC representative Heath Curtiss argues that the new rules
are based on different management practices than those
modeled by the RipStream project. He says the approach
adopted in the new rules “has not been modeled, and we
believe it is likely that, given an opportunity to implement
the rule and observe the results, the new prescriptions will
prove efficacious.”
Bob Van Dyk, the Oregon and California policy director
for the Wild Salmon Center, says the rulemaking was a step
in the right direction but doesn’t go far enough to protect
salmon habitat and prevent warming rivers.
“The buffers that the Board of Forestry picked are less
than what ODF and EPA science has shown is necessary to
prevent stream warming,” Van Dyk says, adding that salm-
on advocates are worried about the effects climate change
might have in further warming these coastal watersheds
and have raised concerns that the new rules left out many
Southern Oregon watersheds, which have significant salmon
populations.
Van Dyk says the new rules are “a political decision
about what we value, not just a science decision.”
ODF’s Armstrong writes, “While most everyone agreed
the decision was not easy, the Board reviewed and weighed
the merits of the various proposals and adopted a policy be-
lieved to provide the least-burdensome impact to landown-
ers while also meeting the Protecting Cold Water standard.”
Whether Oregon can prove to federal regulators that the
new rules go far enough to protect coastal watersheds, and
that EPA should stop withholding funding, is the million-
dollar question.