REDWOOD NEEDLES

Presented by the Sierra Club Redwood Chapter Newsletter,
The REDWOOD NEEDLES

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Clean Water Act under assault

Tell Congress to oppose a special interest loophole in the Clean Water Act for the forestry industry.

Senators Lincoln (D-AR), Hutchinson (R-AR) and Enzi (R-WY) and Representatives Sandlin (D-TX) and. Dickey (R-AR), have introduced bills in Congress to exempt the biggest forestry companies from pollution-control permitting requirements under the Clean Water Act. These permits are the main tool by which the Clean Water Act has successfully reduced pollution around the country.

Sediment from logging and logging roads is a major source of water pollution. Discharging sediments into streams can smother salmon and other fish and change natural stream flows. In 1998, 32 states identified forestry as a source of water quality problems that affects more than 20,000 miles of rivers and streams, 220,000 acres of lakes, and 15 square miles of coastal waters. Due to data limitations, these numbers underestimate the waters polluted by forestry operations.

While the EPA has not required pollution control permits for most forest activities in the past, the Agency has proposed requiring permits for logging operations in very limited circumstances: when the operation includes a discharge of storm water from a discrete source, the state determines that it is a significant contributor of pollutants or is contributing to a violation of water quality standards, and the state determines that other voluntary or regulatory efforts are not sufficient to restore water quality. Contrary to the massive misinformation campaign the forestry industry has launched, the vast majority of forestry operations would still not be required to obtain Clean Water Act permits.

These bills to exempt logging from the Clean Water Act permit system may be the part of a new effort by special interests to fight requirements to clean up polluted runoff.

Take Action

Please contact your senators and representative immediately and urge them to oppose S. 2041 and S. 2139 in the Senate and H.R. 3609 and H.R. 3625 in the House. Tell them that these bills would create an unfair loophole in the Clean Water Act, threatening our nation’s waters, salmon and other fish, and weakening one of our most successful environmental laws for the benefit of big corporate timber companies.

Use the sample letter below, edit it, or write your own message.
Address for the Senators Feinstein and Boxer:
U.S. Senate, Washington DC 20510
Address for the House:
U.S. House of Representatives, Washington DC 20515
To call your Senator or Representative:
(202) 224-3121

SAMPLE LETTER

[Date]
Dear [Your Senator/Representative]:

I strongly oppose H.R. 3609, H.R. 3625, S. 2041 and S. 2139, which would create a special interest loophole in the Clean Water Act for the forestry industry. These bills would create an automatic exemption for logging activities from the Clean Water Act’s system for requiring individual sources of pollution to obtain permits.

Logging and logging roads pollute water in many parts of the country. Many scientific studies document the harm to water quality and aquatic ecosystems caused by improper logging and logging roads. Roads and logging can significantly pollute stream by introducing high volumes of sediment and changing natural stream flow patterns. Voluntary efforts and minimal state regulations have been largely ineffective in cleaning up this pollution, which is why Clean Water Act permits should be required. H.R. 3609, H.R. 3625, S. 2041, and S. 2139 create an environmentally destructive loophole in the Clean Water Act, weakening one of our most successful environmental laws for the benefit of a few forestry companies. They would harm salmon and other endangered species. These bills may appear as a rider to an appropriations bill&emdash;a particularly inappropriate, backdoor strategy for weakening the Clean Water Act. I urge you to stand up for clean water and responsible forestry practices and oppose these bills.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

[Your name and address]

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