The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined that NEXT Renewable Fuels, Inc.’s current proposal to construct a diesel refinery at Port Westward requires another major federal permit. Represented by Advocates for the West, Columbia Riverkeeper and 1000 Friends of Oregon in 2024 sued the Army Corps for failing to require this permit, which would protect levee infrastructure from NEXT’s […]
Sage-grouse and the Sagebrush Sea We won a significant victory in our sweeping case challenging thousands of oil and gas leases in sage-grouse habitats. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the first Trump administration illegally approved hundreds of oil and gas leases on public lands in “Phase One” of our […]
Get the latest on the work we’re doing to protect the West’s public lands, water, fish, and wildlife! Read the latest edition of our Case Notes newsletter here.
We’re joined by Kathleen George, Council Member for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde; Jennifer Fairbrother, Legislative & Policy Director at Native Fish Society; and Laurie Rule, Senior Attorney at Advocates for the West to discuss ongoing efforts to save native fish in Oregon’s Willamette River Basin from the threat of extinction. View the full […]
Advocates for the West and a coalition of local and national conservation groups sued the U.S. Forest Service today for its approval of the Stibnite Gold Project, an open-pit cyanide leach gold mine in Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains that would jeopardize public health and clean water, harm threatened species, and permanently scar thousands of acres […]
On Friday, September 6, the U.S. Forest Service released the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) and Draft Record of Decision (DROD) for the Stibnite Gold Project. The planned open-pit cyanide vat leach gold mine in Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains would jeopardize public health and clean water, harm threatened species, violate Indigenous treaty rights, and permanently […]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that professional gold miner Shannon Poe violated the federal Clean Water Act when he dumped suction dredge mining waste into the South Fork of the Clearwater River without a required pollution permit. The South Fork of the Clearwater is a State Protected River and provides […]
Southern Resident Killer Whales are on the brink of extinction. Idaho’s sockeye salmon are on life support. The Clearwater River’s once famous wild B-run steelhead population is in a state of collapse. These are data-based facts, and anyone who denies them is ill informed, unable to accept reality, or running for re-election to Congress in […]
Advocates for the West warned federal water managers of our intent to sue to protect threatened Upper Willamette River Chinook and steelhead from harm caused by numerous dams throughout the Upper Willamette River basin in Oregon. On Thursday, our Portland office sent a notice of intent to sue to the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) on behalf […]
By Board President Linwood Laughy In 1966 I lived with my parents beside the Middlefork of the Clearwater River in north central Idaho. Our home stood across the river from Highway 12, with principal access by rowboat and canoe. One day a neighbor invited my father to come meet two friends, an elderly Nez Perce […]