DRA supports NWEA in lawsuit to clean up Oregon’s rivers

The Deschutes River Alliance strongly supports the Northwest Environmental Advocates
(NWEA) in their Clean Water Act lawsuit aiming to clean up Oregon’s long-suffering rivers.

Earlier this week, NWEA filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
for failing to require the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) to take any
action to clean Oregon’s polluted rivers over the last two decades. If successful, the EPA would
take over control of these plans from ODEQ and would be required to create a schedule for
completing these plans statewide – including for the lower Deschutes River.

Under the Clean Water Act (CWA), states must submit bi-annual reports to the EPA that identify
waters that do not meet pollution standards and establish a plan to clean those waters up.
These plans, also known as TMDLs (Total Maximum Daily Loads), are specifically required under
the CWA.

Currently, more than 3,700 segments of Oregon’s rivers require these clean-up plans. Since
2000, ODEQ has done next to nothing to clean up the state’s waters by completing and getting
final approval for a mere fraction of the needed clean-ups – often, only after court orders.

The lower Deschutes River (LDR) is one of the rivers that have suffered from ODEQ’s inaction.
Segments of the LDR have been deemed overly polluted since 1998. River conditions have only
worsened since then, the result of the SWW Tower’s installation at the Pelton Round Butte
Project. Most recently in 2020, ODEQ identified the need for plans to address pollution in the
lower Deschutes for, among others, temperature and pH pollution. And this excludes a likely-
needed plan for dissolved oxygen, once ODEQ begins to properly enforce the DO standard.
Despite needing plans, ODEQ has not offered any plans or any schedule to address the
longstanding pollution issues in the LDR.

NWEA’s lawsuit would make sure the lower Deschutes finally gets restored. If successful, the
court would order EPA to take the lead on this clean up. EPA would first have to set a clear
schedule for developing the clean-up plan for each of the identified pollutants. From there, it
would have to keep up with that schedule in developing the required plans and then
implementing and enforcing the plans against the polluters. It will be a years-long process, but it
will finally provide certainty for the LDR. And the light at the end of the tunnel will be a lower
Deschutes that supports all of its aquatic life and recreational users.

The lower Deschutes, like so many other Oregon rivers, has suffered long enough. We applaud
NWEA for acting to protect rivers statewide and we support them in their lawsuit.