By Miles Johnson, Legal Director
Originally published in Columbia Riverkeeper “Currents” Issue 1, 2024.
While some organizations shy away from holding governments and polluting corporations accountable, Columbia Riverkeeper believes that litigation is an important tool. Lawsuits complement our gritty grass-roots advocacy and savvy communications strategies to meaningfully improve water quality and river communities.
Here’s how our legal work is rising to the challenges of this moment and creating a safer, more abundant future for everyone.
Restoring Abundant Salmon
Columbia Riverkeeper, along with other plaintiffs represented by the incredible team at Earthjustice, signed a historic agreement that opens the door for Snake River dam removal. Tremendous leadership from Columbia Basin Tribes led to this plan—called the Columbia Basin Restoration Agreement—but a long-running and successful litigation strategy helped, too. And as the plan was being negotiated with the Biden Administration, we created additional leverage by filing a notice of violations against the federal government for illegally killing endangered Snake River sockeye salmon.
We expect the Biden Administration to honor its promises about salmon recovery and Tribal rights. If not, we’ll return to court to protect salmon and the people who depend on them.
In related legal news, Columbia Riverkeeper continues to use the Clean Water Act to combat heat pollution from dams. Over the past decade, we won a series of cases that led to heat pollution limits for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) Columbia and Snake river dams. This spring,the Corps was supposed to announce a plan to meet those heat pollution limits in the Lower Snake River. Unfortunately—but unsurprisingly—the Corps’ plan contains no meaningful solutions and won’t change the status quo that is driving Snake River sockeye and other fish to extinction.
Columbia Riverkeeper responded to the Corps’ plan with detailed legal comments, and we are ready to meet the Corps in court (again) to protect. the progress we have made towards cold, clean water.
Columbia Riverkeeper is also challenging new Oregon rules that make it more likely for fish to be trapped and trucked around barriers like dams—rather than migrating naturally. We are working in solidarity with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Nez Perce Tribe, and in coalition with fish conservation groups represented by Crag Law Center. Upcoming decisions about dams in the Wallowa and Hood River basins would rely on Oregon’s harmful new rules, so this litigation has big implications for migratory fish.
Stopping Fossil Fuels and False Solutions
In addition to tackling the GTN Xpress fracked gas pipeline expansion, we are using all our legal tools to fight the misguided NEXT diesel refinery proposal in the Columbia River Estuary. This includes challenging land use permits that allow industrial development in farmland and suing the Corps for not studying how the refinery’s heavy construction traffic would impact a levee that protects nearby farms and homes. Terrific attorneys from Crag Law Center and Advocates for the West are representing us in these legal challenges.
In Portland, we are still working to end oil-by-rail at the Zenith terminal— and make sure the future is cleaner and safer for nearby communities. Columbia Riverkeeper is continuing to build the case that Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality should deny Zenith’s pending Clean Air Act permit, or at least place meaningful limits on the amount of harmful air pollution that Zenith can emit. Detailed legal and factual research allows us to expose Zenith’s lies, speak with authority to government officials, and prepare for litigation.
Keeping Illegal Pollution Out of the River
Thousands of pipes discharge wastewater and contaminated stormwater runoff into the Columbia and its tributaries each day. Some of those pipes are completely unregulated, and some have Clean Water Act permits but may be violating their pollution limits. Through detailed research and on- the-ground investigations, Columbia Riverkeeper’s staff attorneys figure out where Clean Water Act violations are leading to illegal pollution—then we go to court to stop it.
We recently reached a settlement in a Clean Water Act case against Douglas County PUD regarding oil pollution from Wells Dam in central Washington. After decades without a Clean Water Act permit, our settlement requires Douglas County PUD to reroute all discharge pipes into a centralized treatment system with a single outlet. These upgrades, which will cost nearly half a million dollars, will finally make it feasible to monitor and treat oil pollution from Wells Dam. The tremendous Clean Water Act attorneys at Kampmeier and Knutsen PLLC represented Columbia Riverkeeper in this case.
We are proud and excited to introduce a new addition to our legal team. Staff Attorney Teryn Yazdani joined Columbia Riverkeeper in April of this year and focuses primarily on enforcing the Clean Water Act and working with Tribes to advocate for clean water in agency rulemakings. Teryn’s legal expertise, and her passion for clean water and environmental justice, will help make the Columbia River a cleaner, healthier place for everyone.