Controlling Stormwater from Logging Roads: The Case for Permitting

Abstract

In Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, an environmental nonprofit sought to bring stormwater pollution from logging roads under the ambit of the Clean Water Act’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), which was originally designed for point source discharges. The Supreme Court ruled that these discharges did not require NPDES permits, and thus that Oregon was not in violation of the CWA for allowing unpermitted stormwater discharges in its state forests. In this paper, I argue that permitting stormwater discharges from logging roads is necessary to overcome collective action problems at the state level, and that it can be achieved despite the Court’s ruling in Decker. I propose utilizing general permits, which would avoid the administrative burdens of the individual permit process. Such a system can take advantage of the benefits of current best management practices (BMPs) while improving upon their weaknesses.