Ninth Circuit Rules that NPDES Permits Are Required for Logging Road Ditches and Culverts

In a decision that may eventually have significance far beyond the nine states encompassed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, that court ruled on August 17, 2010 that timber companies are required to obtain National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System ("NPDES") permits for stormwater discharges from logging roads that collect such runoff in ditches, culverts and other channels prior to discharge to streams and rivers. Northwest Environmental Defense Center v. Brown, No. 07-35266 (9th Cir., Aug. 17, 2010). In doing so, the court emphasized that it was applying a long-standing interpretation of the term "point source" as defined in the federal Clean Water Act, under which "point and nonpoint sources are not distinguished by the kind of pollution they create or by the activity causing the pollution, but rather by whether the pollution reaches the [stream] through a confined, discrete conveyance." Northwest Environmental Defense Center, at *12010 (citing the Tenth