Ninth Circuit Upholds Issurance of After-the-Fact Permit

Washington State environmentalists recently lost an eight-year fight to force ITT Rayonier, Inc. to restore wetlands in Grays Harbor which were filled without a Clean Water Act §404 permit. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Army Corps of Engineers' issuance of an after-the-fact permit authorizing the fill activity as part of a log storage area, Friends of the Earth v. Hintz, No. 84-4176. The Corps, according to the appellate court, did not act in an arbitrary and capricious manner in determining that the log storage activity was water dependent and that no practicable alternative sites existed. The Ninth Circuit also upheld as reasonable the Corps' determination that, with off-site mitigation, Rayonier's permit activity did not require preparation of an envionmental impact statement.