Washington Forest Law Center
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BREAKING NEWS:
Court Affirms Obama Administration Decision that Science for Old Growth Species Must Prevail Over Politics
September 2, 2010 -- A U.S. District Court judge in Washington, D.C., ruled yesterday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must revisit a recovery plan and critical habitat designation for northern spotted owls.
The ruling stemmed from a 2008 lawsuit that WFLC and Earthjustice brought on behalf of 14 national and regional conservation groups against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The lawsuit alleged that the spotted owl recovery plan and ESA “critical habitat designations” developed by the Bush Administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were legally flawed because they failed to consider numerous scientific peer reviews that were critical of the plan and because they were improperly influenced by a Bush political appointee who later left government service after a government report publicly criticized her politicized meddling.
The lawsuit was originally filed against the Bush Administration but, at the urging of the conservation groups, officials at the Obama Administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed that the recovery plan needed to be re-done and the critical habitat designation revisited in light of the new recovery plan.
This decision is the first step to restoring critical habitat protections to about 1.6 million acres of older growth on federal land in Oregon, Washington and California. The new recovery plan should also affect state and federal government policies and actions relating to protection of the old growth forests that spotted owls and other forest wildlife depend upon.
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Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals holds that polluted stormwater from logging roads requires Clean Water Act discharge permits
Stormwater being delivered to the South Fork Trask River from the Trask River Road, Tillamook State Forest, Oregon. Photo courtesy of Chris Winter.
August 17, 2010 -- Today, on behalf of Northwest Environmental Defense Center, the Washington Forest Law Center and the Crag Law Center received a landmark decision from the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In a unanimous opinion issued in NEDC v. Brown, a case involving logging roads on Oregon State lands, the Ninth Circuit ruled that polluted stormwater generated by logging roads is subject to regulation under the Clean Water Act’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System.
Learn more about this landmark decision here.
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Congress Requests Investigation of Softwood Lumber Agreement $450 Million Payments
July 2, 2010 -- Pacific Northwest members of Congress have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the 2006 Softwood Lumber Agreement’s distribution of funds to groups in the United States, including those groups with ties to the U.S. timber industry. Since early 2007, WFLC and its clients have been pursuing the truth behind the $450 million dollar giveway to the timber industry through Freedom of Information Act Requests and the filing of two lawsuits. Learn more about our efforts here.
Read Robert McClure’s InvestigateWest post “Northwest reps in Congress call for investigation into timber slush fund.”
Read the June 29, 2010 Congressional letter to the GAO requesting an investigation into how the SLA funds were distributed.
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Photo by David Perry
"SFI is a phony green label that is seriously misleading the marketplace."
The Seattle Times -- Group fights Weyerhaeuser's use of 'green' certification
The Washington Forest Law Center seeks to revoke Weyerhaeuser's SFI “green” certification for failure to protect water, soil and other resources. In a complaint filed last fall, WFLC alleges the company engaged in high-risk logging of unstable slopes—slopes that shed hundreds of landslides during an intense December 2007 rainstorm that triggered widespread downstream flooding.
The complaint is part of a broader attempt by WFLC to undermine the credibility of the SFI certification system, which was launched in 1994 by the American Forest & Paper Association and has evolved into an independent program that covers more than 170 million North American acres.
"SFI is a phony green label that is seriously misleading the marketplace," says Peter Goldman, a lawyer for the law center, which filed the complaint with SFI in the fall on behalf of the Sierra Club.
Read the February 21, 2010 Seattle Times article here.
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WFLC Files SFI Complaint Against Weyerhaeuser for Irresponsible Logging on Steep and Unstable Slopes
On October 1, 2009, on behalf of Sierra Club, WFLC filed a complaint against Weyerhaeuser challenging the company’s “green” certified forestry conducted in Southwest Washington. Weyerhaeuser’s forests are certified under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certification system.
The complaint alleges that Weyerhaeuser violated several of SFI’s environmental standards when it conducted logging and roadbuilding on extremely steep and unstable slopes. During a storm in December 2007, many of these slopes produced massive landslides which delivered large quantities of wood and sediment to rivers and streams, exacerbating flooding that damaged private property and public resources.
The complaint asks SFI to suspend or revoke Weyerhaeuser’s certification and to prescribe conditions ensuring that Weyerhaeuser reforms its practices.
Read the Sierra Club’s complaint.
Read Architecture Week’s October 23 article, “High Tension Over Big Timber.”
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WFLC Files Complaints Against SFI Forest Certification System
Sept. 10, 2009 -- On behalf of ForestEthics, WFLC filed complaints against the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) forest certification system with the Federal Trade Commission and the Internal Revenue Service. The FTC complaint alleges that SFI engages in deceptive and misleading national advertising; the IRS complaint reports SFI for potentially inappropriately using a tax-exempt “public charity” for funding, operating, and marketing its private forest certification label. The filing of these complaints was covered by The New York Times on Saturday, September 12. Learn more.
Why Have We Taken On SFI? Read WFLC director Peter Goldman’s statement.
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WFLC Opposes Conversion of Teanaway Forestland
In August 2009, Kittitas County launched a Subarea Plan process under the Growth Management Act, covering 55,000 acres in the Teanaway River valley. WFLC is representing a coalition of conservation and recreation organizations who want the land to retain its designation as forestland of long-term commercial significance. Working forests contribute to the regional economy and family incomes, provide wildlife habitat and recreation, and store carbon. However, American Forest Land Company proposes to convert Teanaway forestland into a remote, sprawling housing development. Learn more.
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