NEWS
B Y C A R L S E G E R S T R O M , K AT H E R I N E S M I T H A N D E R I N C A R E Y
DEQ HAS
OREGON IN DIRTY
HOT WATER
For more than a decade, Oregon DEQ
has failed to come up with an up-to-
date permitting system for polluters
any of Oregon’s biggest polluters are allowed to
pour wastes into the state’s rivers and streams
using outdated permits.
The state agency responsible for protecting
Oregon’s waters, the Department of Environ-
mental Quality (DEQ), has allowed 75 percent of large in-
dustrial and municipal plants to discharge wastes despite
having expired permits. Some permits haven’t been up-
dated for more than two decades, agency documents show.
Many plants are releasing wastes into rivers that already
have unhealthy levels of toxic chemicals and bacteria, in-
cluding many sections of the Willamette. Some municipal
wastewater treatment and industrial facilities covered by
these permits also contribute to the overheating of rivers,
making the waters hostile to salmon.
According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
records, Oregon is one of the worst states when it comes
to updating permits to ensure big polluters are complying
with the federal Clean Water Act.
More than 350 large industrial sites and municipal waste
plants operate under National Pollution Discharge Elimi-
nation System individual permits. Under the federal Clean
Water Act, polluters are required to obtain permits written
and enforced by DEQ, which administers the federal pro-
gram.
DEQ records show that 268 of the sites are operating
under expired permits, and that more than 20 haven’t up-
dated their pollution permit in more than a decade.
DEQ’s own consultants put a sharp point on the problem
in a 2016 “Recommendations and Implementation Plan.”
The report recognizes the legal troubles the agency could
face as well as the frustrations the permitting program has
created for employees.
“The failure to renew permits in a timely fashion may
put the environment at risk, inhibit communities in making
investments for their future, create potential liabilities and
ultimately expose the state to litigation,” the report says.
“Continued failures to achieve permit renewal goals have
also demoralized staff and diminished DEQ’s reputation.”
Keith Andersen, DEQ special adviser to the director
for water program improvement, says the agency has been
M
working to catch up on its backlog of permits.
Andersen says the backlog of expired pollution permits
has grown in part because of upheaval in the agency’s lead-
ership and a lack of money to keep pace with the work. He
acknowledges that the agency has been falling behind for
more than a decade.
“Getting our systems and process figured out is com-
pletely doable, and we need to do that,” Andersen says.
Documents show DEQ has also sought to avoid con-
frontations with industrial and municipal waste plants. In
a December 2016 letter to state legislators, DEQ admitted
that it is hesitant to enforce up-to-date standards if polluters
can’t afford necessary improvements.
“DEQ has also been reluctant to issue permits at times
due to concerns about a community’s ability to afford or
carry out required facility upgrades,” according to the
agency’s report to the Legislature.
Jon Wilson, a water permit compliance officer, says pol-
itics can also play a role when it comes to giving DEQ the
budget it needs. “It’s absolutely funding and I think that is
intentional to some degree,” Wilson says of financial short-
falls. He says he personally feels that, at times, the gov-
ernment “denies regulatory agencies adequate funding to
make it more difficult for them to enforce the regulations.”
Critics of the agency question the ultimate role funding
plays in the program’s success and say DEQ has simply
been letting polluters off the hook for years by not enforc-
ing environmental standards and ducking fights with indus-
try.
“It’s an agency that doesn’t want to cause people trou-
ble,” says Nina Bell, executive director of Northwest Envi-
ronmental Advocates, a Portland-based nonprofit and one
of several groups critical of DEQ’s failure to police big
polluters.
Doug Quirke, an environmental lawyer and the founder
of Eugene-based watchdog organization Oregon Clean
Water Action Project, says the agency’s inability to enforce
clean water standards has required citizens to step up to de-
fend clean water. Quirke files Clean Water Act suits against
polluters and posts pollution notices for Eugene Weekly to
inform citizens of local enforcement actions by DEQ.
“The ideal would be that citizens would not need to do
enforcement and that DEQ would take care of all that,”
Quirke says. “I don’t see that happening.”
In Springfield, Arclin USA, a resins and chemical man-
ufacturing facility, is operating under a permit that expired
in 1999. The longest expired permit is for Columbia Forest
Products in Klamath Falls — it has been expired for more
than 27 years.
The DEQ grants administrative extensions to facilities
without up-to-date permits so that they can continue to op-
erate.
A 2006 report by DEQ to federal regulators found that
67 percent of monitored Oregon rivers violated clean water
standards. While the permittees are not the only polluters
to these rivers, the lack of updated permits likely means
they are not being held accountable for their share of the
pollution.
The Clean Water Act requires these permits be renewed
every five years. Meanwhile, water quality standards are
supposed to be updated every two to three years. The con-
stant renewal of pollution standards is intended to ensure
that polluters and regulators are using the latest available
science and technology.
Internal agency documents show DEQ isn’t doing that.
In the December 2016 letter to Oregon legislators, DEQ
admitted that it hasn’t always considered existing pollution
levels when issuing permits or extending ones already ex-
pired. The agency also points out that higher environmental
standards would increase costs to businesses and local cit-
ies.
DEQ’s Andersen says changing environmental stan-
dards make it difficult for the agency to keep pace with the
permit writing program.
“We don’t think it’s fair for people to have to guess at
what their requirements will be,” Andersen says. “It’s not
fair to have somebody permitted under this temperature
standard and then two years later have to meet [a new] tem-
perature standard.”
Despite the cost regulations may put on polluters, main-
taining the highest environmental standards is the whole
point of keeping permits current and the intent of the Clean
Water Act.
“When those permits don’t get renewed to incorporate
new information, in all likelihood those permits are not do-
ing the job they’re supposed to do,” Northwest Environ-
mental Advocates’ Bell says.
In 2015, state lawmakers told DEQ officials they want-
ed a solution. The agency spent $250,000 for a consultant’s
report that calls for reorganizing DEQ staff and hiring more
permit writers.
Andersen says DEQ wants to focus on less complicated
permits where water standard compliance is likely. He says
such a strategy will make it easier to write permits that
comply with federal law.
According to Andersen, trying to write permits for in-
dustries dumping into the most polluted waterways could
slow down the permitting process. “Those are some of the
most complicated permits to write, that would take the lon-
gest to write, and are usually the ones that get litigated,”
Andersen says.
Even with the 2017 Legislature underway, DEQ offi-
cials have yet to tell lawmakers what it will cost to hire
enough people to clear out the backlog of expired pollu-
tion permits. Andersen says the agency hopes to present the
Legislature a budget request in 2018, after the agency has
gathered the necessary information.
“They have claimed that they are getting it in hand year
after year, for the last 15 years or so,” Bell says. “I question
if they have any idea what they are doing.”
This story was written as part of the investigative reporting project at the Uni-
versity of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.
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eugeneweekly.com • February 23, 2017
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