Northwest Environmental Advocates--Programs

NWEA's Litigation and Advocacy for Clean Water

NWEA participates in each of six steps to achieve clean water, as described below. The starting point for clean water is the development of water quality standards that are protective of people, fish, and wildlife. The end point is how those standards are turned into pollution controls for point and nonpoint sources to clean up dirty water and keep clean water clean. NWEA focuses on getting agencies both to take actions and to carry out those actions as science, the law, and sound public policy require.

Advocacy for Protective Water Quality Standards
Advocacy for Obtaining Water Quality Data
Advocacy for Using Water Quality Data
Advocacy for Antidegradation Policies and Plans
Advocacy for TMDL Clean-Up Plans
Advocacy for Point and Nonpoint Pollution Controls

NWEA Advocacy for Protective Water Quality Standards

The Clean Water Act requires that states develop water quality standards that establish what amount of pollution is safe for the beneficial uses of waters within a state. The state must review its standards every three years in what is called the Triennial Review. Although neither Oregon nor Washington has adhered to this required timeframe, NWEA has participated in the triennial reviews of both states for over a decade. This involves working on committees with industry representatives, preparing written memoranda and comments, and filing lawsuits if necessary. For information on NWEA's current involvement in the triennial review process, or the states'' water quality standards, contact Nina Bell, NWEA, nbell@advocates-nwea.org. NWEA recently filed an notice of intent to sue (H) the U.S. EPA and National Marine Fisheries Service challenging their approval of Oregon's 1996 standards, including temperature and dissolved oxygen. More…

NWEA has also been active in working to improve federal regulations that dictate how states develop and use water quality standards. In 1996, EPA prepared an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) that addressed many standards issues and NWEA prepared comments in response and participated as an expert on EPA panels nationally.

NWEA's Advocacy for Obtaining Water Quality Data

Because a state's program to protect water quality is only as good as the data it collects on the quality of its streams and lakes, NWEA advocates for extensive data collection. This includes ensuring that the states use the data collected by a myriad of private and public entities, including universities and federal agencies. NWEA campaigned for seven years for National Estuary Program (NEP) designation for the Lower Columbia River in order that federal funds would be made available to gather data on this badly neglected river system. In the end, the states opted to create the Bi-State Program on Lower Columbia River Water Quality which spent part of its over $2 million on gathering data that demonstrate a wide range of toxic contaminants are present in the river system. NWEA also participated in the Willamette River Task Force, a group that advised the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) on studying the river. It was this study that determined that rates of skeletal deformities in Willamette River fish are abnormally high. NWEA resigned from this Task Force because the other participants refused to gather data to evaluate what pollutants are causing the deformities and the source of the pollutants, two critical issues to cleaning up the river. The DEQ continues to ignore much of the data available on the toxic contaminants present in the Willamette River, as a letter prepared by NWEA demonstrates.

NWEA's Advocacy for Using Water Quality Data

A primary use of these water quality data by states is the creation of a list of impaired streams, called the 303(d)(1) list. NWEA advocates for waters to be placed on this list to ensure that mandatory clean-up plans, called TMDLs, are prepared. The states, however, have created numerous artificial barriers in order to limit the number of waterbodies and pollutants for which they must develop and implement clean-up plans. NWEA sued EPA in 1991, 1994, and 1996 to remedy extensive deficiencies in Washington and Oregon's lists of impaired waters. NWEA has also been active in developing priority-setting approaches for states to emphasize the importance of cleaning up polluted waters that affect endangered species and where toxic contaminants pose long term threats to human health and wildlife.

NWEA has also been an advocate for using these data to issue effective public warnings. For example, NWEA posted signs and developed fish consumption warning brochures in six languages and using international-type graphics . NWEA also forced the City of Portland to post signs warning the public about swimming in waters contaminated with raw sewage discharged from Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) pipes. Likewise, NWEA has sought to ensure that data are used by the states to prepare fish consumption advisories, such as near the McCormick & Baxter Superfund site on the Willamette River.

NWEA's Advocacy for Antidegradation Policies and Plans

Simply put, a state's antidegradation policy is intended to keep clean waters clean and prevent dirty waters from becoming more polluted. It also provides a mechanism to keep some special waters cleaner than oterhwise required by state water quality standards. However, neither Oregon nor Washington implement these policies in the vast majority of cases. NWEA has worked with Washington's Department of Ecology to develop an antidegradation implementation plan that conforms with the law, a plan that has been delayed for years. In Oregon, NWEA has addressed the state's failure to develop such a plan by suing EPA.

NWEA's Advocacy for TMDL Clean-Up Plans

For more than 10 years, NWEA has worked to obtain Clean Water Act clean-up plans for waters identified by the states as having unsafe levels of pollution. These plans, called Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), are essential to determining what levels of pollution polluters can be allowed to discharge by law, as well as what controls are needed to prevent polluted runoff from land activities. NWEA brought its first case against EPA concerning Washington's TMDL program in 1991 and settled its TMDL case against Washington in 1998. NWEA settled its TMDL case against Oregon in July, 2000. More…

NWEA also has been a national leader in helping U.S. EPA to develop policies and rules for the TMDL program. NWEA participated as a member of EPA's TMDL Federal Advisory Committee and consulted on the development of EPA's rules, which were finalized in July, 2000. NWEA has also been involved in working to defeat attempts by Congress to delay or eliminate those rules.

NWEA's Advocacy for Point and Nonpoint Pollution Controls

Where water quality violates water quality standards, the federal Clean Water Act requires states to reduce pollution from point sources and some state laws require states to reduce pollution from nonpoint sources. Point sources are regulated directly through the federal Clean Water Act, allowing citizens groups such as NWEA to use litigation and legal advocacy as a tool to reduce pollution from point sources. NWEA has filed lawsuits against point source polluters such as the City of Portland and threatened to sue Gringer Farms for excessive discharges of cow manure to the tributaries of Tillamook Bay. NWEA has prepared extensive public comments on why issuing permits to certain sources would be contrary to the Clean Water Act. In its work for protective standards and TMDLs, NWEA advocates for policies that will have a direct effect on controlling pollution.

State programs establish the controls deemed necessary to restrict or reduce pollution from nonpoint sources. While other organizations focus, for example, on seeking improvements to state forest practices, NWEA focuses on the link between those practices and the Clean Water Act (in, for example, TMDLs, standards, and antidegradation policies) and works with other organizations to accomplish required protections.

NWEA's actions against specific sources of pollution and habitat damage includes using other federal laws. For example, NWEA's threatened lawsuit against the City of Portland using the federal Resource, Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) resulted in plans to clean up toxic wastes in the Columbia Slough. The lawsuit was prevented by the City's having agreed with Oregon DEQ to treat the slough as a Superfund site. Likewise, NWEA's lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to prevent the proposed deepening of the Columbia River shipping channel is pursuant to the Endangered Species Act.

NWEA's Work to Enforce NPDES Permits

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