For the week of June 13 - June 19, 2001

Western law clinic 
opens Hailey office

Region’s environmental 
issues targeted

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

A growing environmental movement in the West has prompted a Eugene, Ore.- based law firm to expand into the Wood River Valley.

The Western Environmental Law Center held an open house reception at its Hailey office on Bullion Street on Friday to introduce the local environmental community to the expanding firm, which began in the mid 1970s and opened a local office in April.

Liz Mitchell, left, is a Western Environmental Law Center attorney who recently opened an office on Bullion Street in Hailey. Law Center executive director Pete Frost joined Mitchell Friday for an open house at the new office. Express photo by Greg Stahl

"We want to have a regional presence," said Liz Mitchell, Law Center attorney and Hailey office manager.

The non-profit Law Center has about 50 active cases in eight Western states, including at least three in Idaho. Off-road vehicle use, salvage timber sales and confined animal feeding operations are among the Idaho issues Mitchell said the Law Center is working on.

The Law Center employs a staff of about 20 and has satellite offices in Taos, N.M., and now in the Wood River Valley. It’s chalked up a number of significant wins, including a 1998 lawsuit charging the federal government with ignoring a requirement of the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan to survey for certain species before approving timber sales. The plan was adopted in response to concerns about the spotted owl.

"We cut our teeth on forestry," said Law Center executive director Pete Frost.

Over the past decade, the Law Center has expanded its focus from timber issues to taking on cases related to air and water pollution, low-level military overflights, wildlife habitat preservation, the repatriation of Indian lands and preserving Western communities.

An example of the latter is a case that could help give Taos, N.M., community groups a stronger voice in land-use decisions and prevent a Wal-Mart from building a store there.

Frost said the center accepts cases based on three criteria: the possibility of setting an important legal precedent, protecting a particularly special place or working for a special or familiar client.

Three of the Law Center’s Idaho clients are the Idaho Rural Council in Bliss, Idaho Rivers United and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies also just opened a Wood River Valley office this year.

The center has taken on cases on behalf of family farmers to force the dairy industry near Bliss to stop polluting waterways. It represents Nevada residents who want to protect a lake from being drained by upstream irrigators. It is fighting to preserve wildlife habitat in Oregon, New Mexico and Idaho.

Even so, Frost stressed that the Law Center is not an environmental group, but a law firm.

"We don’t have a conservation policy, and we judge our clients’ conservation policies on the context of whether we want to take their lawsuits or not," Frost said. "All of us have done this for a reason, to protect and restore the West, and we pride ourselves in being a law firm.

"We represent only bona fide environmental groups and conservationists."

The firm would probably never represent controversial environmental groups such as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Earth First!, because they are known for operating outside legal parameters.

"We are about enforcing the law, and we are not about representing organizations whose policies would take them outside of the law," he said.

Without citizen watchdogs and law firms to back them up, many federal agencies would not adhere to federal environmental laws, Frost said. Many would.

The firm’s most frequently-referenced federal laws are the National Forest Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act. Those are followed closely by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the Endangered Species Act, Frost said.

"We are one of the means by which these laws are enforced, but without citizens watching, agencies wouldn’t follow these rules. Without lawsuits, you’d have far less compliance with these laws," he said.

As far as the prospect for picking up more Idaho-based cases, Mitchell said that probably won’t be a problem.

"I’m definitely still feeling people out, but I’m excited," she said. "There’s so much going on here, so there definitely seemed to be a need for it."

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