Judge hears request to protect coho from logging-induced landslides

A landmark salmon protection case will be heard in federal court in Portland this week. A coalition of conservation and fishing groups has asked the court to stop logging on unstable slopes near coho salmon streams in Oregon's North Coast region while the full case goes to trial. On Tuesday and Wednesday, February 11 and 12, Earthjustice attorney Patti Goldman will present this request to Judge Anna Brown from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Portland's federal court building at 1000 SW 3rd Avenue.

The groups' request for a preliminary injunction on certain steep slope logging is supported by scientific facts that have been available to the Board of Forestry for over a decade:

• Clearcuts on steep slopes cause landslides.
• Landslides kill coho salmon.
• Actions that kill coho salmon are prohibited by the Endangered Species Act.
• Oregon's Department of Forestry routinely approves clearcuts on landslide-prone slope where ensuing landslides would reach coho streams.

In a last minute attempt to avoid legal liability, the Oregon Board of Forestry changed its rules to remove approval requirements from steep-slope logging that is not in close proximity to fish-bearing streams. Although this rule change does remove some steep-slope clearcutting from the requested injunction for now, the rule change did not stop this hearing from going forward as the state and industry attorneys requested. Of the 14 sites used as examples in this case, all would still require state approval despite the rule change.

The court filings demonstrate a strong consensus in the scientific research that clearcuts dramatically increase the occurrence of landslides compared to un-logged areas. Sediment and debris from those landslides kills wild coho salmon and their eggs in the streams. Over a dozen specific examples of clearcut logging operations threatening coho have been presented to the court.

The case addresses the kind of clearcutting on high-risk slopes that the Department of Forestry has considered an unacceptable threat to homes and roads ever since landslides from clearcuts killed five people in November 1996. Under current rules, when human life or property is at stake, clearcutting on landslide-prone areas often is prohibited, but when coho salmon are at risk, clearcutting routinely is approved.

The requested injunction to stop clearcuts on certain landslide-prone slope would apply only to Oregon's North Coast Region and only to ownerships greater than 5,000 acres. Large industrial owners manage much of the steepest ground in the Coast Range.

This is a lead case to enforce the Endangered Species Acts (ESA) prohibition on harming coho salmon through logging practices. Although the federal government is intended to be the primary enforcer (here, the National Marine Fisheries Service), citizens also are authorized to enforce the ESA. The full lawsuit targets three specific categories of coho-harming practices on industrial timberlands:

1. Clearcut logging on high-risk sites (e.g. steep slopes) where landslides could obliterate coho salmon habitat (the subject of the preliminary injunction argument);
2. Logging near small and medium fish-bearing streams with only the minimal 20 foot no-cut buffers now required under the state's rules;
3. Logging without any size of no cut buffer on small streams that feed into salmon habitat, also permitted under the current rules.

For more background on this case, including a chronology of events significant in the effort to improve Oregon's policies to protect streams and native fish from the effects of poor logging practices, click here.

To learn more about PRC's legal actions, click here.