Portland, OR -- The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed "Oregon Rule," which would pave the way for federal dams to evade their Clean Water Act obligations, is a trial balloon for a broad national policy that would have devastating consequences for river ecosystems across the country, conservationists warned today.

The proposed Oregon Rule would allow federal agencies to petition the EPA to weaken water quality standards that are needed to maintain river conditions that support healthy and thriving fish populations.

Right now, many federal dams impair water quality to the point that fish populations are decreased and sliding toward extinction. If a federal dam operator petitions EPA, the Oregon Rule would require EPA to initiate a process to change standards to suit the dam -- even if lower standards would prevent restoration of healthy fish populations.

EPA staff have admitted that the Oregon Rule is a precursor to a national rule that would offer special treatment to federal dams that violate water quality standards -- dams that can have severe effects on both temperature and dissolved oxygen content in the water trapped in their reservoirs.

The proposed national rule will also contain many other provisions to undermine efforts to make all rivers safe and clean for fish and people.

"The Bush administration has shown time and time again that if an environmental protection law is too inconvenient for polluters to comply with -- they'll just change it," said Buck Parker, executive director, Earthjustice.

"Now, the Bush administration has gone a step further by encouraging its own federal agencies to dismantle the very backbone of one of the strongest and most important environmental laws that we have -- the Clean Water Act."

Most federal dams are owned and operated by either the Army Corps of Engineers or the Bureau of Reclamation. The U.S. Congress has proposed reforms to address the Corps' well-recognized lack of commitment to protect the environment and the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed legislation designed to improve the Corps' track record.

Encouraging this agency to find further exemptions from one of the nation's leading environmental laws dramatically undermines these critical reform efforts.

"Encouraging the Army Corps to violate the Clean Water Act is like encouraging a dog to chase a cat," said Paula Del Giudice, director, Northwest Natural Resource Center, National Wildlife Federation.

"It makes no sense and the federal taxpayers and communities that depend upon salmon and steelhead for their livelihoods will be the victims of this new administration rollback."

One river impacted by the Oregon Rule is the Willamette River near Portland, OR, the nation's 13th longest river. The Willamette, which is currently in violation of water quality standards, has nine Army Corps dams that are directly affecting its mainstem temperature and might evade regulation under the proposed rule.

If the rule is extended nationally, it could also sanction pollution from hundreds of other dams across the country, including the four dams operated by the Army Corps on the lower Snake River, which violated water temperature standards for 63 days in a row this summer.

According to the EPA, one of the primary reasons water temperatures reach such high levels in the Snake River is because of these four dams. Dams hold back river water creating slow-moving reservoirs that expose more water for a longer period of time to the sun's heat. These high temperatures can be devastating to the river's ecosystem and lethal to salmon and other wildlife.

In addition, federal dams throughout the Southeast, such as Bull Shoals dam on the White River in Arkansas, discharge water with very low dissolved oxygen, threatening aquatic life downstream.

"Clean water is essential to our health, quality of life and local economies," said Rebecca Wodder, president, American Rivers. "If the administration guts clean water safeguards, it will essentially be taking money out of the pockets of fishing, boating and recreation businesses across the country."

The new water quality standards proposed by the administration for the state of Oregon would effectively relieve more than 150 of the state's federal dams from their Clean Water Act responsibilities. If a similar provision is put forward for the nation, more than 2,100 dams could be impacted.

"Our environment's health and well-being rests on the back of laws like the Clean Water Act," said Roger Rufe, president, The Ocean Conservancy.

"We cannot stand by and allow the current administration to reverse decades of protection that we have enjoyed under the Act. In the 1970s, we fought to have the Clean Water Act enacted; today we must fight to keep it from being dismantled."