State Attorney General Rob McKenna's office consulted several state agencies when deciding if it should challenge a federal-court ruling about how logging roads are managed to protect clean water.

The state commissioner of public lands, who oversees state forests, saw no need for a challenge. The state Department of Ecology, which oversees water, said the ruling would have minimal impact in the state.

But last week, McKenna's office joined several states and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that declared logging roads, as a source of pollution, would need federal permits.

In so doing, the state's leading Republican candidate for governor found himself again in the middle of a controversial case, accused by political opponents of ignoring fellow state leaders.

The same charge was leveled against McKenna when he joined a multistate challenge to President Obama's health-care law and when he refused to appeal a decision involving the placement of power lines in Okanogan County after Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark asked him to do so.

This time, however, the situation is murkier.

At issue is a complex ruling that would for the first time require logging-road owners to get permits under the Clean Water Act if their roads include ditches and culverts that channel stormwater runoff into streams.

For more than a quarter of a century, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not required such permits and has let states manage logging-road runoff. Environmentalists have said that many states do a terrible job preventing forest-road runoff from flushing pollution into streams or letting culverts scour creek beds.

Forest landowners around the country complain the change would cause an undue regulatory burden. Many of those states have joined a brief challenging the ruling.

"We think the 9th Circuit made a mistake that will lead to all kinds of chaos," said Cindy Mitchell, with the Washington Forest Protection Association, which represents forest landowners and timber companies in the state.

But both the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the state Ecology Department say the situation is different in Washington. The state's forest and fish law, passed in 1999, already requires timber landowners to clean up logging roads by 2015.

"We feel the historic forest and fish rules put us in a good position to comply with the ruling," said Bryan Flint, spokesman for DNR. "Any changes would be minimal."

Ecology Department Director Ted Sturdevant said, "Our forest and fish laws already are such that we think the regulatory burden would not be so great."

But Randy Dorn, state superintendent of public instruction, at the behest of forest landowners, asked McKenna to challenge the decision. Dorn sits on the state Board of Natural Resources because he has a stake in how school trust lands are managed. The money raised from DNR lands is used for state schools construction.

"The timber folks were saying it could have an effect on their lands," Dorn said. "I talked to them over the phone and said 'How can I help?' "

McKenna's office said it acted independently of Dorn's request. Officials there said they joined the brief filed by other states because the ruling would let the federal government take some authority from the state for managing logging roads and would expose residents to citizens' lawsuits, a provision of the Clean Water Act.

Peter Goldman, an environmental attorney and high-profile Democratic Party activist whose law firm helped win the 9th Circuit ruling, discounted that explanation. He said the ruling would matter little here but that timber owners have holdings in other states that could be affected.

"Dorn and McKenna are just trying to use the state's clout to help the timber guys," he said. "They can't speak for the state when they haven't gone through the agencies who have expertise in this area."

But they did. Both Flint at DNR and Sturdevant at Ecology said they were consulted by McKenna's office. Neither thought the case needed to be challenged — but neither did they urge McKenna not to.

"I did not weigh in with a clear 'We think you should not file on this,' " Sturdevant said.

McKenna spokeswoman Janelle Guthrie said it would not have mattered either way in this case.

"It's not like a democratic process where we go through, take a vote of all our clients or decide which is more valuable or important," she said. "The role of the AG's office is to take everything into consideration and take a broad look at the state's interests."

Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published Oct. 30, 2011, was corrected Oct. 31, 2011. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Randy Dorn, the state's Superintendent of Public Instruction, sits on the Forest Practices Board. He sits on the Board of Natural Resources, which oversees management of state lands, including school trust lands.