This spring, Earthrise and co-counsel (and Earthrise alum) Bryan Telegin of Telegin Law, PLLC are gearing up to submit a summary judgment briefing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington on behalf of NWEA. Clinic students James Cole and Michael Johnson have done great work researching and drafting for this submission. The suit challenges the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s partial approval and subsequent partial replacement of state pollution clean-up plans for the Deschutes River and Budd Inlet, known as Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs). Collectively, these TMDLs are intended to resolve water quality impairments for temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, fine sediment, and bacteria in the Deschutes River and dissolved oxygen in Budd Inlet, the one of the most polluted portions of the iconic Puget Sound.
Restoration of the Deschutes and Budd Inlet water quality is critically important, and quality TMDLs are critical to restoring waters that violate water quality standards. Beyond being iconic waters in themselves, large parts of the Deschutes are critical habitat for Puget Sound steelhead, designated as threatened under the ESA. Excessively warm temperature threatens those steelhead. Additionally, increasing nutrient pollution in the Puget Sound will continue to deplete dissolved oxygen in Budd Inlet. This continued depletion threatens the habitat of threatened Puget Sound Chinook salmon which are in turn the primary food source for the ESA-listed Southern Resident killer whales.
However, despite these critical concerns and as alleged in its Third Supplemental Complaint, NWEA maintains that the decisions to approve these current TMDLs were arbitrary and capricious and failed to adequately address the water quality concerns in these waters. Earthrise looks forward to supporting NWEA’s work and to advocating for improved water quality in the Deschutes River and Budd Inlet.
