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Protecting the environment by providing legal services for forest cases of statewide significance.
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Skagit Co. v. State of Washington

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This case addresses the lawfulness of a state statute that sought to protect the water quality, trust assets, and public safety of the State’s thousands of acres around Lake Whatcom, the source of the City of Bellingham’s water supply, from the adverse impacts of logging near the Lake. Conservation Northwest takes the position the Legislature had the authority to require a planning process that protects the quality of Bellingham’s drinking water.

Skagit County Superior Court No. 05-2-00246-1

CLIENT: Conservation Northwest (formerly Northwest Ecosystem Alliance) 

CO-COUNSEL: Earthjustice

STATUS: Pending in Superior Court 

BACKGROUND:  This case concerns the right and duty of the state to protect water quality, state school trust assets, and public safety on state owned forests even if it means reduced income to the trust beneficiaries.

In 1999, Conservation Northwest, with the support of Senator Harriet Spanel, successfully convinced the Legislature to unanimously adopt a planning process that protects water quality, trust assets, and public safety in the Lake Whatcom watershed by restricting logging on surrounding state land. Many people in Northwest Washington depend on Lake Whatcom for clean drinking water, and extensive studies reflect that logging would increase runoff of sediment and naturally-occurring phosphorus. The planning process resulted in the development of the Lake Whatcom Landscape Plan. Also, landslides generated by steep slope logging around the lake can threaten public safety and result in damage claims against the State, jeopardizing the value of the trust assets.

Skagit County, a trust beneficiary, and industry groups challenged the Plan alleging that the Legislature could not adversely impact the value of the trust lands without compensating the trusts, regardless of the public safety and drinking water issues at stake.

Conservation Northwest moved to “intervene” in the case to defend the Legislature’s right to require the Department of Natural Resources to maintain water quality. We seek an interpretation that the state is permitted, if not required, to protect public resources such as water quality and wildlife habitat when it conducts timber sales. We believe that protecting important resources, like water quality in Lake Whatcom, is completely consistent with the state’s duty to manage the state’s trustlands.