Currently browsing: Litigation

Federal attorneys this week argued that a U.S. magistrate wrongfully took on the role of "scientific arbiter" last month in declaring illegal the NOAA Fisheries Service's withdrawal of its proposal to list the Oregon coast coho salmon stock under Endangered Species Act.

The Oregon House on Thursday night passed the so-called “Oasis” bill, which would draw a total of 495,000 acre-feet of water a year for 25 years from the Columbia River to help farmers in Eastern Oregon increase crop production.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday asked the federal government for its opinion in a legal debate regarding a Canadian company's potential liability for lead-zinc processing byproducts that rode the current south across the border into Washington in the upper Columbia River.

A request for U.S. Supreme Court consideration of an international dispute over Columbia River heavy metals pollution is flawed and legally unripe, according to documents filed earlier this week by the Colville Tribes and state of Washington.

A U.S. appellate court decision making a Canadian company liable for fouled Columbia River waters below the border could well trigger a pollution war between the two countries, according to a request filed Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Canadian metals company plans this month to ask the Supreme Court to consider the firm's arguments that it is not liable under U.S. law for the "release" of hazardous substances into the upper Columbia River in northeastern Washington.

Under an agreement signed last week, the financial burden for evaluating contamination levels in the upper Columbia River, and resulting risks to human health, will shift from U.S. taxpayers to the Canadian zinc producer that long used the river as a waste repository.

Dept. of Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton today announced she will leave the President's Cabinet at the end of March.

A state-led effort to establish a more cordial process for Columbia River water sharing is moving ahead in Washington again after foundering last year in the state

A federal judge ruled this week that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
violated the Endangered Species Act when it downlisted Northwest Montana
wolves from endangered to threatened, drawing cheers from conservation
groups and leaving state and federal wolf managers pondering the
implications of the ruling.

Another chunk of the Snake River Basin Adjudication was settled last week with an agreement among parties on water rights in six Idaho rivers federally designated as Wild and Scenic Rivers and in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.

A lower court injunction banning the spraying of certain pesticides near salmon-bearing streams will stay in place while agricultural interests and chemical companies appeal the decision, according to a ruling this week by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Red tape and short staffing are causing the government to miss deadlines
for Endangered Species Act "consultations" 40 percent of the time in the
Northwest, a new report from the General Accounting Office concludes.

Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo sent a letter Thursday (Nov. 20) to Secretary of Interior Gale Norton urging her to explore ways to increase the use of state management programs in federal wolf recovery efforts.

The letter was also signed by Senators Larry Craig, R-Idaho; Conrad Burns, R-Montana; Max Baucus, D-Montana; Gordon Smith, R-Oregon; and Craig Thomas, R-Wyoming.

The Bonneville Power Administration and members of the two major utility groups in the region have signed a proposed litigation settlement that would roll back the Bonneville Power Administration's wholesale rates 7.4 percent if ratified by all remaining public utility litigants, BPA officials said this week.

After increasing its prices by 2.2 percent this week, a settlement among its customers that is likely to be set in motion next week could allow the Bonneville Power Administration to drop its electricity prices by nearly 10 percent by early next year.

An agreement being negotiated between the Confederated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian
Reservation, Westland Irrigation District near Hermiston and the Bureau
of Reclamation could lead to federal legislation for a third and final
phase of the Umatilla Basin Project in Northeastern Oregon.
The first and second phases of the federal water-exchange project, which
cost $56 million over nine years, delivers Columbia River water to three
irrigation districts, which, in exchange, leave water ...

The recent listing of the only known bull trout populations in Montana
east of the Continental Divide will afford new protections to populations
that biologists have only recently studied.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last week announced the listing of
St. Mary and Belly River bull trout as threatened species, along with an
isolated population off Washington's Puget Sound.
"It's one of those situations where we don't have much information on
what was there historically," said ...

Three conservation groups that say warm water discharges from a Potlatch
Corp. pulp and paper mill near Lewiston, Idaho, harm fish and are unlawful
are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force changes in
Potlatchs Clean Water Act permit.
The lawsuit brought against the EPA on Aug. 9 seeks to force the agency
to consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and
Wildlife about the effects of Potlatchs warm water discharges on endangered
salmon, ...

A policy to suspend road construction in roadless areas in the Columbia
River Basin is still being considered by the Forest Service.

Forest Service officials say the agency has been trying to resolve some
basic questions the policy raises -- questions like, "What are roadless
areas?"

"As you get into the operational side of these administrative rules,
there are problems you begin to see," said Rhey Solomon, the Forest
Service's assistant director of ecosystem ...

Budgets approved Wednesday keep the Northwest Power Planning Council
"on track" to reduce its spending to $6.2 million annually by
2001, according to Steve Crow, the Council's executive director.

At its meeting in Whitefish, Montana this week, the Council approved
a revised $7.155 million budget for fiscal year 1999 and a draft 2000 budget
of $6.724 million.

The draft 2000 budget compares to a peak Council allocation of nearly
$8.5 million in 1992. A staff analysis shows the

In order to provide "the deference owed the managers on fish and
wildlife issues," tribal attorneys for four Columbia Basin treaty
tribes are proposing a significant modification in the way $127 million
in fish and wildlife restoration projects are chosen for funding each year.

The proposal has already generated opposition from the staff of the
Northwest Power Planning Council, which manages the project selection process.

The Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority, ...

Interested parties have until July 24 to make comments
on suggested refinements to the Corps of Engineers' mainstem capital construction
program.

A staff "issue paper" released May 19 by the Northwest Power
Planning Council focuses on potential efficiencies in Corps engineering
processes in terms of both improving design and reducing costs on Columbia
and Snake river fish passage improvement projects. The Council was asked
by Congress last year to conduct reviews of the ...

A request by the Umatilla Tribes for federal adjudication of treaty-reserved water rights has been linked to a senate bill in the Oregon Legislature that seeks to increase the state's share of water from the Columbia River for economic development.

Wolf foes and proponents added their opinions to a state wolf management plan Wednesday in northwest Montana.

Montana unveiled its draft wolf recovery plan this week, but state officials cautioned that federal government needs to share in the costs of managing wolves.

The 288-page draft environmental impact statement lays out five possible approaches toward de-listing, ranging from strict to liberal controls on wolf populations.

In an effort to better meet the water needs of a diverse population and, reduce the need for legal battles over the limited water supply, the Washington Department of Ecology on Tuesday formally filed a proposal to develop a new way for managing the waters of the Columbia River.

A state proposal to mitigate for taking a limited amount of groundwater -- coupled with a recently completed but not fully reviewed study that links groundwater removal with river flows in the middle-Deschutes River basin -- has Central Oregon residents worried.

Six years after failing to reach consensus on federal legislation to
authorize and fund a third phase of a water-exchange project in the
Umatilla River Basin, parties are attempting again to work out their
differences in time to convince Congress to add about a quarter of a
million dollars to the Bureau of Reclamation's budget to start a
feasibility study.

Two conservation groups filed a complaint late last month in federal
court seeking a final decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to
protect the Kootenai River burbot of northern Idaho and northwest
Montana under the Endangered Species Act.

The Port of Portland proposed this week to take over cleanup efforts in
the lower 5.5 miles of the Willamette River from Swan Island to the
river's confluence with the Columbia River to avoid an imminent
Superfund listing.