Active Cases
The Crag Law Center is a client-focused non-profit law center that takes cases on behalf of local citizens and conservation groups. The Crag Law Center responds to specific requests for assistance from real people and grassroots conservation groups throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
Currently, Crag primarily handles cases in Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The Crag Law Center staff are licensed to practice in state and federal court in all three of these states. Our active docket involves environmental cases which fall into three program areas: 1) Public Lands, 2) Water Quality & Wetlands, and 3) Livable Communities.
Through our three program areas, Crag has provided and continues to provide assistance to over 50 local people and conservation groups throughout the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. On their behalf, we litigate, collaborate, negotiate and build their capacity to accomplish their individual missions. Crag is client driven and takes a bottom-up approach to representing the needs of real people facing real-world situations. Below you will find a highlighted cases, check out Crag’s detailed program pages for more information on our work.
Livable Communities Program - Battling Big Oil on Alaska’s North Slope
For thousands of years the livelihood of the Inupiat Eskimo on the North Slope of Alaska has depended 
on subsistence hunting and fishing. This way of life continues, but it is threatened by the unrelenting search for oil in the Inupiat’s traditional hunting grounds in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The Crag Law Center is assisting the Inupiat people and their alliance of environmental groups challenging Shell Oil’s plans to drill off the North Slope, arguing that in approving the plans the government failed to consider the impacts of their actions on subsistence resources. The alliance was successful in halting exploration activities during the 2007 season while the Ninth Circuit considers the appeal. The story of the people and Shell’s proposal to drill for oil was featured in the New York Times. To read the article and view an 8-minute narrated slideshow, visit:
Livable Communities Program - Protecting Farmlands, Forestlands and Ground Water Supplies
The Crag Law Center continues its work for local citizens to protect farmlands, forestlands and ground 
water supplies from uncontrolled development. Oregon voters resoundingly passed Measure 49 in November 2007. While the law cleaned up much of the mess that was made by Measure 37, several claimants are holding strong to what they sought to build under the misguided law. Numerous claimants are attempting to prove that their right to build is “vested” under the old law. Measure 49 pointed to the common law of vesting, and as can be expected, property rights advocates and land use advocates to not see eye to eye on what the common law says. Developers with plans to build large scale developments on prime farmland are working hard to move forward with plans under Measure 37, and Crag continues to support neighbors and communities as they seek to preserve the rural character of their communities. Crag is handling well-over 30 cases throughout Oregon and is leading a coordinated effort with other attorneys to ensure the smooth transition to Measure 49.
Livable Communities Program - Partnering with Communities on the Oregon Coast
The Crag Law Center continues to partner with Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition in our Coastal Law 
Project. Crag is supporting local communities as they work toward a vision of sustainable development along the Oregon coast. In recent years, the number of applications for gravel mining in the Chetco and Rogue Rivers has increased. Tidewater gravel mining company recently sought approval of two land use applications in Curry County to mine gravel from the Rogue. One application was approved by the Curry County Planning Commission to allow gravel extraction in an area where it was prohibited. On behalf of local fisherperson groups, Crag appealed the decision to the County Board of Commissioners.
Public Lands Program - Protecting the Drinking Watershed and Historic Backcountry on Mt. Hood.
Late in Summer 2001, Hood River County traded 640 acres of the County’s forested drinking watershed 
to Mt. Hood Meadows. The land the County proposed to trade was adjacent to Meadows private land holdings near Cooper Spur and Meadows had indicated its intent to develop the land into a four-season destination resort. The County claimed it had trade the land for its fair market value, yet the County ignored the value of the land for proposed development and did not hire a qualified appraisers to determine the traded property’s value. While state law does not authorize the County to pay any money for the difference in value between the properties traded, the County also paid Meadows over 1 million dollars to “equalize” the deal.
The Crag Law Center agreed to represent local citizens and the Hood River Valley Residents Committee in a challenge against Hood River County. After a long and drawn out battle, Crag obtained a positive ruling from the Oregon Court of Appeals which reversed the district court. The parties then entered into mediation. After over 15 months of negotiation, the parties announced a proposal to permanently protect the North side of Mt. Hood as Wilderness and protect the Crystal Springs zone of contribution through a congressionally designated Wilderness. In exchange for giving up all its land on the North Side, Mt. Hood Meadows agreed to accept land of equal value in Government Camp. A bill to protect the area is currently pending in Congress. Staff Attorney Ralph Bloemers traveled to Washington, D.C. in September 2008 to testify to Congress in support of this legislation.
Public Lands Program - Protecting Oregon’s Wildlands, Old Growth Forest and Roadless Areas
Crag is representing conservation groups to enforce key requirements of the Northwest Forest Plan as they apply to controversial thinning projects on Pacific Northwest Forests. In the Olympic National Forest, Crag represnts the Olympic Forest Coalition on a a challenge to the Bear Saddle Thinning Project, which threatens rivers and streams. The Forest Service proposed to use very small buffer (20 feet) to protect the streams. Through this action, the Crag Law Center is enforcing the aquatic protections of the NFP and clarified that they apply with full force and effect to thinning projects.
The Crag Law Center is representing conservation groups in Eastern, Oregon in a challenge to the Five Buttes timber sale, which proposed heavy logging within Old Growth forests, which have been set aside as reserves for key species like the spotted owl. The Crag Law Center secured a ruling from Judge Michael Hogan that the Forest Service could not thin in these reserves without ensuring that the project protects habitat for these key species.
The Crag Law Center recently won an important case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this last year in the School Fire project in SE Washington. The 9th Circuit held that the Forest Service must disclose when its logging plans threaten roadless areas less than 5,000 acres in size. For years, the Forest Service had refused to disclose these impacts and regularly planned timber sales that roaded and degraded areas that are eligible for Wilderness designation. In Oregon alone, over 3.1 million acres of roadless lands are not protected by the Clinton-era roadless rule.
Clean Water & Wetlands Program - Challenging Violations of the Clean Water Act
We are working on behalf of the Columbia, Willamette and Tualatin Riverkeepers to protect these three river systems from municipal stormwater discharges. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has issued permits for stormwater discharges, however the agency refused to include any enforceable requirement for the protection of water quality standards and beneficial uses. In doing so, DEQ has attempted to roll back fundamental water quality protections that have been part of Oregon state law since the late 1960’s. In the last nine months Crag has worked with our clients to move this litigation through the Oregon Court of Appeals.
The Crag Law Center has also brought important litigation seeking to reduce stormwater pollution from logging roads in the Tillamook State Forest.
Sediment discharges from logging roads are on of the leading sources of pollution in coastal rivers in Oregon, and they are essentially unregulated pursuant to the Clean Water Act’s permitting program. This case seeks to force the Oregon Department of Forestry and logging companies to identify and get permits for pipes and ditches that drain polluted stormater directly into important salmon-bearing rivers and streams. The case is currently pending in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and oral argument scheduled in November 2008.
The Crag Law Center is working with concerned citizens in Aurora, Oregon to ensure the proper operation of the City’s sewage treatment plant (STP). Aurora was the last city in Oregon to build an STP, and the operation of the plant has not been in compliance with their waste water discharge permit since the beginning. The city’s operations threaten the quality of the Pudding and Molalla Rivers. Crag recently sent a 60-day notice letter to the City on behalf of concerned citizens and Willamette Riverkeeper.
On behalf of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, the Native Fish Society and several conservation organizations, the Crag Law Center issued a 60-Day Notice of Intent to Sue to the Oregon Department of Fish and Widlife (ODFW) for hundreds of violations of the Clean Water Act. ODFW administers Oregon’s salmon hatcheries, and these facilities routinely violate the Clean Water Act. Those violations threaten to harm fragile aquatic ecosystems as well as native fish.
You can find additional information on our active cases through the links to the Crag Law Center program areas in the menu bar above. Feel free to contact us for further information on any case that may be of particular interest.
