1-14-2011
Upward Trend in Chinese Demand for U.S. and Canadian Lumber
Lumber exports to China from U.S. Mills are on a pace to double in 2011. China's overall lumber import increased by 128 percent in 2010, according to Random Lengths Inc., a forest-products industry trade publication based in Eugene, Oregon. "The China thing is the big talk among producers in Western Canada and the Western U.S.," said Jon Anderson, publisher of Random Lengths. Analysts say this is the first big jump in lumber demand from the world's most populous country in years.
Resolution 01-11 (word doc)
Proposed by Senator James Hargrove, State of Washington
We, the Members of the Western Legislative Forestry Task Force, which is comprised of five states and one Canadian province, do hereby proclaim:
WHEREAS, Western watersinclude a variety of waters, including small ephemeral washes; large perennial rivers; effluent-dependent streams; and wild, scenic rivers. In addition to natural rivers, streams and lakes, there are numerous man-made reservoirs, waterways and water conveyance structures. The federal government must provide flexibility to allow states to adopt water quality standards that are appropriately tailored to the unique characteristics of Western water bodies; and
WHEREAS, Non-point source pollutionrequires watershed-oriented water quality management plans, and federal agencies should collaborate with states to carry out the objectives of these plans. The CWA should not supersede other ongoing federal, state and local non-point source programs. Federal water policies must recognize that state programs enhanced by federal efforts could provide a firm foundation for a national non-point source policy. In general, the use of point source solutions to control non-point source pollution is ill advised; and
WHEREAS, Storm water runoff from forest roads has been managed as a non-point source under EPA regulation and state law since enactment of the Clean Water Act. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in NEDC v. Brown overturned this 35-year old interpretation and ruled that storm water runoff associated with forest roads must be treated as point sources authorized through permits issued under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). The Western Legislative Forestry Task Force members are concerned about the potential impacts of treating forest roads as point sources under the NPDES program and continue to seek solutions that are consistent with the long-established treatment of forest roads as non-point sources; and
WHEREAS, Reauthorization of the CWA must reconcile the continuing administrative need for general permits with the site-specific permitting requirements under the CWA. EPA should promulgate rules and guidance that better support the use of general permits where it is more effective to permit groups of dischargers rather than individual dischargers; and
WHEREAS, Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs)/Adaptive Management:EPA should work cooperatively with the states to develop and implement a TMDL program that provides flexibility to accommodate state and local conditions. Fully implementing TMDLs will require a full suite of tools available to the states, including modification of permits, restoration programs, non-point source best management practices, as well as other innovative approaches. States should develop the necessary models, processes and principles to assume a leadership role to resolve TMDL issues, and cooperate to address issues that transcend their boundaries. Given the significant costs associated with TMDL implementation, it may also be prudent in some situations to utilize adaptive management techniques. This may include the use of interim performance measures, the effectiveness of which can be monitored and evaluated before fully implementing TMDLs; and
WHEREAS, Section 303 gives states the primary responsibility to establish water quality standards (WQS) subject to EPA approval, including the establishment of anti-degradation policies and the methods they will use to implement such policies. States have a variety of ways of providing implementation instruction to regulated entities, such as continuous planning process documents, NPDES regulations, and stand alone guidance documents. Given the states’ primary role in establishing WQS, EPA should directly involve the states in the rulemaking process for any proposed changes to its existing regulations
before imposing new anti-degradation policies or implementation requirements. EPA should document the need for new requirements and strive to ensure that new requirements do not interfere with sound existing practices; and
WHEREAS, Since the advent of the Clean Water Act, Democratic and Republican administration have held that most silviculture activities were non-point sources for purposes of the Act and would be best regulated at the state level, under the states’ individual forest practices laws. Under this rule known as the “silviculture rule,” silviculture activities – such as nursery operations , site preparation, reforestation and subsequent treatment, thinning , prescribed burning, pest and fire control, harvesting operations, surface drainage, or construction and maintenance, from which is natural runoff – were regulated through the Clean Water Act by states best management practices.
This rule for forest roads has now been explicitly invalidated by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which – in a series of two decisions – implicitly undermined the long held “silviculture rule,” stemming from litigation over the use of forest roads in Oregon state-owned forests.
According to the 9th Circuit, storm water runoff collected and directed by a system of ditches and culverts creates a discrete point source and therefore must be regulated as industrial storm water runoff. This judicial interpretation of the Clean Water Act means that every source of runoff on forest roads will now require an industrial storm water runoff permit. Not only will new roads need to be permitted, but the hundred of thousands of miles of existing roads in Oregon, California, Washington, Idaho and Alaska as well as around the country – on both public and private lands – will now need to be reviewed and issues permits.
If this one court’s decision to overturn 35 years of widely accepted Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policy is allowed to stand, private, state and tribal forest owners will also likely be subjected to litigation as part of the permitting process or through lawsuits under the citizen suit provisions of the Clean Water Act, the outcome could well deny states the use of their forests which they depend on to pay for schools and services, while significantly depressing the investment required to sustain private forestry; and
WHEREAS, If this decision is allowed to stand, every use of the forest roads will require permitting and will therefore be subject to challenge by citizen lawsuits. This action will not only overburden landowners and managers in 9th Circuit states by adding significant compliances and permitting costs, it will create an opportunity for administrative appeal and litigation every time a permit is approved.
Initially, the court’s ruling will apply solely to our region of the country, but we can expect more challenges in the federal courts and with the EPA itself, seeking to extend the ruling which will give a permanent competitive advantage to our foreign competitors who have far lesser environmental standards and enforcement; and
WHEREAS, The fact is that forests and forest roads – even private ones – have multiple economic and environmental uses and users – from wildlife habitat to recreation to timber production – over decades long growing and harvesting cycles. The “silviculture rule” existed because forestry is different from other industries, even other agriculture production. In this instance, we believe the courts have gone too far in reinterpreting the law and why legislation is needed to make the long accepted “silviculture rule” the legal basis for the Clean Water regulation of forestry practices; and
WHEREAS, Congress left regulation of runoff from diffuse “non-point sources,” under state authority.
Drafted with guidance and approval from EPA, Best Management Practices (BMPs) for forestry are science‐ based actions targeted at the most important causes of NPS pollution from forestry activities to minimize the impact forestry operations on water quality. BMPs have been successful at controlling non-point source pollution from all aspects of forestry operations, such as harvesting, road construction, streamside buffering, hydrology and storm proofing road systems.
Environmental protections shift to measuring discharge from individual pipes on forest roads instead of the more comprehensive watershed health. Using BMPs to improve water quality that reflect the long‐ term nature of forestry operations are more effective than short‐ term discharge measurements. Mandated NPDES permits would burden landowners and state agencies without real environmental benefit.
When the EPA adopted this rule in 1976, it defined the key activities associated with responsible forest management as non-point sources subject to “best management practices” or BMPs. EPA concluded that the non-point sources BMPs better addressed water runoff from forest management than would discharge permits which the Clean Water Act requires for point sources. As you know, the Clean Water Act directs that each state must develop and implement BMPs; and
WHEREAS, Forestry activities in the United States are now conducted under the most comprehensive program of BMPs of any land use activity and studies have shown that these BNP are widely used and highly effective. Most states engage with the forest landowners in a process of continuous improvement for their BMPs even to the extent of engaging in peer review programs with other states.
Today the greatest threat to our forests comes from the conversion of forests to non-forest uses that produce a higher economic value. The families, businesses and individuals that own nearly 60 percent of our nation’s forests depend on the returns they get from the products their forests produce to make additional investments in sound, long-term forest management. Regulations such as the nonpoint source definition of silvicutlure are critical factors enabling landowners to maintain their land in forests.
Decisions like this regarding the silviculture definition do not further the protection of water quality but rather hasten the conversion of forestland into other uses. As new housing starts remain at their lowest levels in decades, and with forest products markets losing jobs as well, this is hardly the time to impose unnecessary new regulatory burdens; and
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT PROCLAIMED by the Western Legislative Forestry Task Force that all avenues possible, including passage of H.R. 2541 and or S. 1369, be used to return to the recognition of Best Management Practices in order to provide stability to the forest, recreation, and land management industries as has been the case for the past thirty five years with reasonable and scientific methods of management.