Street roots., February 20, 2015, Page 5, Image 5

Street Roots • February 20-26, 2015
UNDERWATER, from page 4
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against facilities violating the terms of their
DEQ water quality permits since 1999. He
“We took huge cuts - 19 percent cuts,"
often works with nonprofits such as the
says Aldrich. “It is frustrating. We get an
Willamette Riverkeepers.
agreement, we start ramping up, we add a
“We track permit compliance, and we
stormwater program that people support,
bring citizen enforcement action when we
and then you start seeing cuts. Some of it is
find noncompliance,” says Quirke. But he
a loss of general funds, some of it is a loss
can enforce only the terms of the permit
of federal funds. And then the stormwater
any particular polluter is operating under,
(program) - because a lot of it is paid for by
not
current regulations.
industry - as they shrank, you just see the
“In a general sense, the regulations under
program shrink,” he says.
DEQ’s $52 million Water Quality Program the Clean Water Act tend to get more
stringent over time, so any of these facilities
suffered a $5.7 million reduction in the
with expired permits would have more
2011-13 budget, which represented a loss of
stringent permits if they were issued today.”
about 37 full-time positions. These cuts
He says older permits issued in the 1990s
included seven employees among
are of particular concern. “You don’t really
wastewater permitting and stormwater
need
to do an analysis to know that a permit
programs.
that old would definitely be more stringent
But budget isn’t the only factor
if it were issued today,” he says.
contributing to DEQ’s backlog. Aldrich says
tighter regulations make the permit writing
process increasingly complex, which
requires a lot more water testing and
EQ’ s current Water Quality Program
analysis. DEQ is also experiencing high
Manager Jennifer Wigal says in the
turnover rates as its experts, many of whom
last 15 years, DEQ has seen tighter
joined the program in the early 1970s when
regulations in several areas.
it was created, are retiring.
“Temperature standards have been done
Litigation in 2012 surrounding DEQ’s
and redone several times over the years,
temperature requirements added to the
which is a concern for a lot of dischargers,”
backlog because DEQ stopped issuing
she says.
permits involving temperature regulation
Most notably, in 2011 toxic pollutants
during that time.
standards changed significantly, specifically
Now Aldrich is DEQ’s policy and analysis
regarding reductions
manager. He hopes
on pollutants that
the Legislature will
affect fish and people
help figure out a way " I l is f r u s t r a t in g » We g e t a n
drinking the water,
to increase funding
a g re e m e n t^ w e s ta r t
she says.
to. th^waterjquality
‘ ¿vj’hbxhapges in
r a m p ia g u p ^ w e a d d a
program in the next
2011 came about when
s to rm w a te r p r o g r a m th a t
biennium, because
Oregon found that its
p e o p le s u p p o rt^ a n d th e n y o n
the budget package
fish consumption rate
s ta r t s e e in g c u ts» "
DEQ is seeking will
was much higher than
merely sustain the
previously thought,
— greg aldrich
program, not help it
OREGON DEPARTMENT says Teresa
OF ENVIRONMENTAL quality Huntsinger, water
catch up, he says.
As things are,
program director at
DEQ prioritizes
Oregon Environmental
which permits get
Council. She sits on a committee that was
renewed and which ones continue to be
formed to help find solutions to DEQ’s
extended based on risk factors and
tremendous water permit backlog in 2001.
economic needs. Aldrich says the agency
“For many years they were making progress
always prioritizes permits for new facilities
and catching up with that backlog, but in the
and' expansions.
last few years things have been getting
The last time DEQ was this far behind on worse again,” she says.
water permits, it stopped inspecting and
Huntsinger says part of DEQ’s resource
monitoring permit holders entirely and
issues have to do with water permit fees.
focused only on writing permits. Aldrich
“The wastewater plants pay an annual
says this time DEQ is approaching things
fee, and the increase in that fee hasn’t ever
differently.
been commensurate with the staffing cost,*
“We’ve been putting more effort into the
she says. “DEQ has a proposal this year to
compliance part,” he says. But with the
increase those fees, and they’re increasing
workload, his environmental engineers are
them more than they usually do to catch up.
not always able to review all the water
The permitees have been really balking at
testing data that permit holders self-report . that, which you can understand. Partly
to DEQ
because, from their perspective, they’re
“I think what’s been challenging for usis
saying, ‘We’re getting poor service, it’s
we sometimes have this data presented to
taking you a long time to deal with our
us, and we’ve not spent time looking at it to
issues, and what are we going to get in
say, ‘Oh, well you even reported a problem
response for paying increased fees? We’re
and we didn’t follow up on it.’ That’s where
still going to be getting poor service.’ So I
it looks incredibly bad for us,” he says.
can see that point of view, but also at the
Because DEQ hasn’t been able to do its
same time they’re not paying the cost of
job fully, river-watching nonprofits and their
writing their permits, so their fees need to
attorneys have stepped in to fill the void.
be increased.”
Doug Quirke,founder of Oregon Clean
DEQ’s air and land programs are not
Water Project, has been bringing litigation
backlogged in the way its water quality
B
program is, and this is in part because
funding for those programs is more reliant
on fees, says Aldrich.
While most of Oregon’s water quality
permits are expired, Indiana leads the
nation with nearly 100 percent of its permits
up to date. But it too has experienced
significant backlogs. Back in 2005, there
were 263 administratively extended water
quality permits across the state. According
to Bruno Pigott, assistant commissioner to
Indiana’s Office of Water Quality, it took a
statewide commitment to fixing the problem
to get his department to where it is today.
When Mitch Daniels became Indiana’s
governor in 2005, he made the water quality
permit backlog a top priority, meeting with
Indiana’s water program his second day in
office. “He was very concerned about our
agency’s backlog,” says Pigott. He appointed
a new commissioner and required the
agency report its progress to his office.
“Our individual performances as well as our
agency performances were judged on our
ability to reduce and eliminate that backlog,”
says Pigott “We made a concerted effort -
it came from the very top and came down to
an organizational commitment to getting it
done,” he says. His organization also ceased
extended negotiation with permitees over
the parameters of permits. “If they said
they were going to appeal a permit, we said
OK, go ahead,’” he says.
But Oregon has not given DEQ the
funding that would be necessary to see the
kind of progress that states like Indiana
have made in reducing backlogs. And that
means stringent water quality requirements
are an uiireaph^ble ideal, not a reality.
Last year Siltrotiic Corp., a semiconductor
manufacturer in Portland, made headlines
when the EPA listed it as the top waterway
polluter in the state for 2012. Its wastewater
permit expired in June, and the DEQ
regulator responsible for its permit, Mer
Wiren, says she has no idea when it will be
renewed.
Wiren, is one of only two employees
charged with monitoring, inspecting and
writing permits for all 55 major industrial
wastewater permit holders in DEQ’s
Northwest Region of Oregon. She says
Siltronic applied for the renewal six months
ahead of time like it was supposed to, and
she issued an “indefinite administrative
renewal” that will keep it legal until she
rewrites the permit. Additionally, as a major
facility, Siltronic is supposed to receive an
on-sight inspection every two years, but
received no inspection between 2010 and
2014.
But the pollutant that earned Siltronic its
place at the top of Oregon’s polluters,
nitrate compounds, isn’t even limited under
the terms of its current perm it When told
about the EPA’s ranking of Siltronic due to
nitrates, Wiren says, “That’s a new piece of
information to me, but if it’s a concern, we
can look at that.”
Wiren says in the five years she’s worked
as an environmental engineer at DEQ, she’s
never seen a water quality permit renewed
on time.
Siltronic spokesman Christof Bachmair
says Siltrnoic has been working at reducing
its pollution. He said the company has
effectively reduced nitrate compound
Page 5
emissions by 90 percent since 2000.
Bachmair also pointed out that many
facilities with wastewater permits discharge
to wastewater treatment plänts, not directly
into the river.
“Some of these companies are
discharging more nitrates than Siltronic,” he
says. “In addition, the water treatment
plants receive residential waste, which also
contain nitrates. Again, these nitrates are
typically not treated, nor are they reported
to EPA as a part of the Toxic Release
Reporting program. So in our view, the true
picture of discharge rankings is not clearly
portrayed by the EPA reports,” he says.
Portland’s Environmental Services
spokesman Line Mann confirmed that there
are no specific requirements at the
Columbia Boulevard and Tryon Greek
wastewater treatment plants to remove
nitrates and other nitrogen compounds.
According to the EPA, nitrates can cause
people to become seriously ill if high levels
are present in drinking water? Nitrate
compounds can also be harmful to the
health of aquatic organisms and fish;
In DEQ’s Northwest Region, covering
Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington,
Columbia, Tillamook and Clatsop counties,
the most outdated permits belong to the
Port of S t Helens, written in 2003, and
StarLink Logistics Inc., a Portland
agricultural chemicals manufacturer that’s
permit was renewed in 2003.
1 1 \h e EPA ultimately is responsible for
Oregon’s permit backlog. It oversees
JL DEQ, and gave it the authority to
issue and monitor water quality permits.
Quirke says any lawsuit resulting from
someone getting sick from pollution emitted
under the parameters of an old permit
ultimately would be directed at the EPA.
“The main plan of attack for this sort of
thing that I’ve seen is to try to get EPA to
pull the approval of the state program, and
if it actually did happen, that means that the
administration of the program would get
taken away and kicked back to EPA,” says
Quirke.
The EPA has never fully revoked a state’s
authority to issue permits, and to do so in
this case wouldn’t be in Oregon’s best
interest, says Christine Psyk, associate
director of the EPA’s regional wastewater
permitting unit. “We’ve had conversations
with Oregon about their backlog,” she says,
“but we don’t have a standing workforce to
come in and take over permitting.” She says
the EPA is working with Oregon to find
ways to get caught up.
As the permitting process becomes more
and more complex, with some wastewater
permits filling an entire six-inch binder,
looking at ways to streamline the process
and providing roadmaps to permit writers
are areas of focus, she says.
While Oregon may be the farthest behind
on issuing permits, it’s backlog problem is
not unique. “Everyone has somewhat of a
backlog,” says Psyk. “The EPA has a
backlog, too.”
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