OLYMPIA, WA – A lawsuit has been filed by the Washington Farm Forestry Association and the Washington Forest Protection Association against three state agencies, challenging a recent decision to expand buffer zones around non-fish streams.
The Nov. 25 lawsuit, filed in Thurston County Superior Court, targets the Washington State Forest Practices Board, which, less than two weeks earlier, approved a new buffer rule that expands riparian shade protections for perennial non-fish-bearing streams. The new rules require 75-foot buffers along the entire length of said streams. Buffers are currently 50 feet wide along half of a stream. The buffers were set in the landmark 2001 Forest and Fish agreement between state and federal agencies, tribes and forestland owners.
Also named in the lawsuit: the Washington State Department of Ecology and the Washington State Department of Natural Resources…