Crag Law Center

Crag Law Center Accomplishments – Victories & Successes on the Ground.  Providing High Quality Legal Representation

     The Crag Law Center has represented local citizens and conservation groups in their efforts to protect thousands of acres of old growth habitat in publicly-owned stands of forests in the Pacific Northwest from destructive and unsustainable logging projects. These ancient forests support dwindling habitats for threatened and endangered plant, animal and fish species, including steelhead, coastal salmon and bull trout. To date, the Crag Law Center has secured protections and successfully challenged over 24 logging projects affected hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands.  Visit out Public Lands Program page to find out more about specific forest protection projects the Crag Law Center has taken on for local groups.

     The Crag Law Center successfully enforced the Clean Water Act, halting years of manure runoff from Portland’s horse racing arena into the Columbia River, and pursued a large mobile home park in southern Oregon until it ended its discharge of extremely high levels of chlorine into a tributary of the Rogue River, a crystal clear gem. The Crag Law Center has represented their clients in forcing over seven Clean Water Act violators into compliance.

     Protecting Mt. Hood – In 2002, Hood River County traded more than 600 acres of the Crystal Springs Watershed to Mt. Hood Meadows. This land trade appeared to pave the way for Meadows build a massive development in the Hood River County municipal watershed. Despite strong citizen objection and the lack of valuation reports from an appraiser, the Hood River County Commissioners approved the deal. The Crag Law Center worked with the Hood River Valley Residents Committee to bring a court case challenging the land trade and prevailed in the Court of Appeals. Soon after this critical victory, the County, Mt. Hood Meadows and the Hood River Valley Residents Committee agreed to meet and try to mediate a settlement. The Hood River Valley Residents Committee put all options be on the table and negotiated an option that would keep the North side as a historic backcountry wilderness area. This proposal is currently part of legislation pending in Congress

     The Crag Law Center’s staff attorneys represented the Hood River Valley Residents Committee and Mike McCarthy, a local orchardist whose family farm would have been negatively impacted by the proposed development, in over 14 months of negotiations with Hood River County and Mt. Hood Meadows, and were able to hammer out a settlement agreement to permanently protect the North side of Mt. Hood. The Crag Law Center helped HRVRC to carefully craft settlement language, including provisions that seek to permanently preserve the watershed, forests, and wildlife in this area. Meadows also agreed to divest all of its properties and business holdings in Hood River County from the Mt. Hood Country Store to the summit of Mt. Hood. The settlement agreement preserves the existing natural setting of the North side of Mt. Hood for future generations, including Crystal Springs watershed, Cloud Cap, Cooper Spur, Tilly Jane Creek and Polallie Canyon areas, and the historic community ski area.  The parties have obtained the support of the Oregon Congressional delegation, as well as the support of the conservation community. For more information please contact us or visit the Cooper Spur Wild & Free Coalition website.

     Protecting in-stream flows in the Lower Deschutes River – The Crag Law Center successfully enforced state water quantity protection laws in a challenge to new rules for the Deschutes Basin that threatened to systematically deplete the interconnected groundwater and surface water in the basin. We brought this suit on behalf of local rafting companies, a fishing outfitter, scientists and local land use advocates.

Educating the Public

    Protecting Roadless Areas on the North Side of Mt. Hood – The Forest Service (FS) planned three large-scale timber sales near Cooper Spur on the North side of Mt. Hood. The FS justified the Polallie-Cooper timber sales as a fire risk reduction project to protect an urban area, yet there are only a handful vacation homes in the area. Crag worked with local residents, climbing groups and conservation groups to educate them on the legal problems with the logging project, and connected them with an expert fire ecologist who systematically surveyed the area and provided a science-based critique of the Forest Service’s proposal. As a result of this science-based education effort, the Crag Law Center was able to assist our clients with convincing the Forest Service to withdraw its plan to log the area. Now, the Crag Law Center is working local residents, the Forest Service, watershed groups, elected officials, the Crystal Springs Water district and conservation groups to pursue a priority-based effort to reduce fire risk to the second homes in the area that protects the watershed and ensures the natural, historic and scenic integrity of the area.

     Continued funding for Oregon watersheds – The Oregon Legislature has been defunding the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds by diverting money from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (“OWEB”). OWEB uses proceeds from the Oregon lottery to make grants to local watershed protection groups. The Oregon Legislature has been taking this money and backfilling the budgets of state agencies.  The Crag Law Center worked with its clients to gather information on the budget appropriation process, details of inter-agency relationships, and the laws applicable to the situation. As a result of this process, our client has been effective during the recent legislative session in advocating for protection of OWEB’s fish restoration budget. Our educational efforts have helped the client understand the different legal and political options for ensuring that this money gets to OWEB and the local groups.

Assisting Clients in Traditional Grassroots Organizing

     The Crag Law Center has played an integral role in bringing together an innovative coalition of 15 different conservation and recreation groups, as well as local family farmers and residents, to advocate for the historic backcountry of Oregon’s sentinel, Mt. Hood. This area was threatened by a massive destination resort development, ski area expansion and large-scale logging plans justified as a fire-risk reduction project. The Crag Law Center’s staff attorneys introduced people to each other, helped them identify common interests, and worked with them to establish a formal coalition. Through this coordinated effort, the coalition reached a shared position statement with other organizations. These organizations went into the community to take the message to the people of Hood River County and the rest of Oregon. The Cooper Spur Wild and Free Coalition work on behalf of well over 50,000 Oregonians and the coalition has played a central role in preventing unsustainable development on Mt. Hood.

     Keeping McDonald’s off Hawthorne Boulevard – In 2001, McDonald’s proposed to site a franchise in an old drive-thru building in the heart of Hawthorne Blvd. Local citizens, businesses, neighborhood associations and politicians were all concerned that a drive-thru contradicted the pedestrian friendly plan for Hawthorne. The Crag Law Center played a key role in helping to organize the community in an effort to promote their pedestrian-friendly vision for the Boulevard. The Crag Law Center participated in public meetings, and worked with the public to build a large movement of people that shared a common goal. Through protests at the site, letter writing, legal research and advocacy, the public and the Crag Law Center convinced the City of Portland that the proposal did not comply with the land use code. The public garnered the support of several city council members and convinced McDonald’s that the community would not support its business. These organizing efforts helped to protect one of Portland’s most unique neighborhoods.

Training the next generation of lawyers and professionals

     Student Interns – Every summer and during the school year, the Crag Law Center has taken on the responsibility of mentoring and training law students. We involve these students in hands on legal and advocacy work. Our summer students have written briefs for federal courts, met with state agencies and worked directly with clients on their cases. Our clerks have gone on to work across the country for environmental organizations, putting their skills to work in other communities. Crag helps students with a passion for conservation find avenues to incorporate their ideals into their legal work. Crag trains students to continue the important legal work for ongoing environmental preservation.

     Summer Associate Program – The Crag Law Center’s Summer Associate program typically draws three law students from different law schools. Each associate is assigned projects based on their experience before law school.  In 2005, Jennifer Bragar combined her community organizing and land use planning experience to challenge a zoning change that would allow unsustainable development in Coos County. Suzanne Piluso, formerly with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, used her expertise grant making and community relations to assist her in filing a potentially precedent setting discrimination case against the Environmental Protection Agency. Former Forest Service biologist, Kate Schneider, worked to protect post-fire forests from logging that would destroy the natural regeneration of those ecosystems.

Assisting Local Conservation and Sustainability Organizations

     Crag works to help conservation and sustainability organizations seek incorporation and maintain non-profit status. Chef’s Collaborative is a group of progressive chefs and restaurant owners, including the owner of Higgins, who had an interest in promoting sustainable cuisine, via direct farmer to chef connections, information about genetic engineering and sustainable food supplies. Crag helped them set up an organization, affiliate as a local chapter of a national group and put in place a non-profit structure that promoted their mission. Since then, the organization has taken on a life of its own and has connected chefs and restaurant owners with critical conservation issues such as over fishing, genetic engineering and food distribution.