Earthjustice filed official comments with the federal government responding to attempts to rewrite rules protecting rivers, creeks, and streams in the Pacific Northwest from damaging logging practices. The comments seek to keep the current protections in place.

Current rules governing protection and restoration of Northwest watersheds were hammered out in the 1990s after the courts found logging on public lands had destroyed much of the Pacific Northwest old-growth forests and added damaging levels of deadly sediment from logging sites to salmon-bearing waters. The watershed protections currently under attack by the Bush administration are drawn from the best science on what is needed to maintain clean water and healthy fisheries.

The timber industry told the Bush administration in a series of meetings and correspondence, uncovered by a FOIA request, the watershed protections were keeping them from cutting timber. The Bush administration responded by acting to weaken the rules as requested by the timber corporations. In its public comments, Earthjustice reveals that the administration is consistently misrepresenting the intent, application, and legal history of the watershed protection rules in its efforts to rewrite them. Click on the link below to view the comments.