BUSINESS
Saturday, January 11, 2020
East Oregonian
A7
DEQ issues largest air quality fine at $1.3M
Aluminum recycler
fined for processing
dirty material
By SAM STITES
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — An aluminum
recycling plant in The Dalles has
been hit with the largest fine ever
imposed by the Oregon Depart-
ment of Environmental Quality
for air pollution.
The state announced Thurs-
day that it is assessing a fine of
$1.3 million against Hydro Extru-
sion USA, a Norwegian company
found by DEQ and Environmen-
tal Protection Agency inspectors
to have multiple violations of its
air quality permits for its plant in
The Dalles. The violations were
found during an inspection in
April 2019, DEQ said.
According to DEQ, the facili-
ty’s air quality permit allows it to
melt only “clean charge”— mate-
rial that’s free of oil and grease,
paints or other coatings. Inspec-
tors found that the facility pro-
cessed unclean, coated aluminum
scrap for more than a year.
“DEQ found Hydro Extru-
sion operated with flagrant disre-
gard for the rules and conditions
of its air quality permit,” said
Kieran O’Donnell, DEQ compli-
ance and enforcement manager.
“DEQ expects industrial facil-
ities to adhere to the rules that
are in place to protect the health
of Oregon’s people and environ-
ment. Hydro Extrusion chose not
to follow these rules, and DEQ is
holding the facility accountable
to ensure in the future it operates
in full compliance with environ-
mental laws.”
According to DEQ, inspec-
tors also found the facility didn’t
do required tracking and mon-
itoring to prevent the process-
ing of unclean charge, failed to
keep required records, submitted
inaccurate certifications to DEQ,
and use excessive amounts of an
additive used to improve product
quality.
After identifying the viola-
tions, DEQ ordered the facil-
ity to stop using unclean alumi-
num, improve its tracking and
monitoring program, and submit
monthly records so DEQ can ver-
ify compliance.
Hydro Extrusion has improved
its scrap monitoring program at
the facility and certified to DEQ
that it has stopped processing pro-
hibited material, the agency said.
The majority of the penalty –
$1,063,485 – is the estimated eco-
nomic benefit the facility gained
by avoiding the cost of pollution
control equipment. If the facility
installs control equipment, DEQ
may reduce the penalty.
The largest air quality per-
mit penalty issued by DEQ until
now was $303,169 against Eagle
Picher Minerals in 2002 for oper-
ating a mineral processing plant
Washington lawmaker introduced
a bill that would allow CBD in food
CBD has fueled
a boom in hemp
cultivation
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA, Wash. —
Hemp’s popular non-psycho-
active compound CBD would
be a legal food ingredient
in Washington under a bill
introduced Jan. 7 by a state
legislator, a move that would
cross federal food-safety
regulators.
The legislation, sponsored
by Republican Rep. Drew
MacEwen of Mason County,
also runs counter to the Wash-
ington State Department of
Agriculture’s warning to pro-
cessors to not mix CBD into
products to be ingested by
humans or animals.
“We still have concerns
about allowing CBD in
food,” agriculture department
spokesman Chris McGann
said Tuesday. “A state-led
effort to allow food ingredi-
ents not allowed by the FDA
would be complicated to
enforce and put processors
and markets at risk.”
The Food and Drug
Administration says CBD
hasn’t been proven safe to
consume and that inter-
state trafficking in CBD-in-
fused food and drinks is ille-
gal. Nevertheless, CBD has
fueled a boom in hemp plant-
ings across the country. Pop-
ular products include CBD
chocolates, gummies and tea.
The FDA has approved
CBD for one product: a pre-
scription drug to treat two rare
and severe forms of epilepsy.
The agency says it continues
to evaluate CBD, but has con-
cerns now about its toxicity
and adverse effects, including
potential liver damage.
A FDA spokesman said
the agency doesn’t comment
on pending legislation.
Capital Press Photo/George Plaven
Cannabidiol, or CBD, is one of the main products driving interest in growing hemp.
Industrial Hemp Associa-
tion of Washington Director
Bonny Jo Peterson said the
state bill was “useless.”
“It still wouldn’t stop the
FDA from coming in and
saying, ‘Hey, you can’t do
this,’” she said.
The Washington Leg-
islature last year passed
a hemp-regulation bill,
responding to the 2018 Farm
Bill, which took hemp off
the federally controlled sub-
stance list. The bill allows
the “whole hemp plant” to be
used as food, but also directs
the state agriculture depart-
ment to follow federal law
in regulating hemp as a food
ingredient.
The Legislature was
unwilling to approve CBD
in food without the FDA’s
approval, said Vicki Chris-
tophersen, executive director
of the Washington CannaB-
usiness Association.
“I don’t know how much
has changed in nine months,”
she said. “It would be a pretty
dramatic action, I think.”
Efforts to reach MacEwen
were unsuccessful.
The FDA sent 22 warning
letters to companies in 2019.
The companies were market-
ing CBD as a curative, dietary
supplement or an ingredient
in food or drink, according to
the agency.
The FDA says it’s continu-
ing to study CBD and antic-
ipates issuing regulations on
making and labeling it.
Christophersen said the
current status of CBD-in-
fused food — illegal but avail-
able — was “very weird.”
But rather than a patch-
work of state rules, the hemp
industry needs a national pol-
icy from the FDA to ensure
CBD is safe and legal, she
said. “It’s just creating a lot
of uncertainty for farmers
and manufacturers,” Chris-
tophersen said.
CBD provides the biggest
potential market for growers.
“Fiber and rope and all that
is probably not where we’re
going,” Christophersen said.
The FDA has declared that
hemp seeds are safe to con-
sume. According to the FDA,
the seeds do not have CBD or
TCH, the psychoactive com-
pound in marijuana.
MacEwen also intro-
duced a bill Tuesday to allow
CBD-infused products to be
sold at marijuana stores. Cur-
rently, marijuana retailers can
only sell cannabis products
with at least 0.3% THC.
House Bill 2296 is the leg-
islation to allow CBD in food.
House Bill 2300 is the pro-
posal to let marijuana stores
sell CBD products.
Logging project lawsuit cites wildlife impact
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
KLAMATH FALLS — A
933-acre logging project on
U.S. Bureau of Land Man-
agement property in South-
ern Oregon is accused of
violating federal law by envi-
ronmentalists who seek to
overturn its authorization.
Several
environmental
plaintiffs — Klamath-Siski-
you Wildlands Center, Ore-
gon Wild, Cascadia Wild-
lands and Soda Mountain
Wilderness Council — have
filed a lawsuit claiming that
BLM failed to fully analyze
the Griffin Half Moon proj-
ect’s impacts on great gray
owls and Pacific fishers.
The complaint alleges the
at-risk species will be harmed
by logging but the “direct,
indirect and cumulative
effects” of the project weren’t
considered by BLM, contrary
to the National Environmen-
tal Policy Act, which means
the project’s approval should
be vacated and any harvest
operations blocked.
The project, which is adja-
cent to the Cascade-Siskiyou
National Monument, aims
to generate about 9 million
board-feet of timber through
thinning as well as clear-cut-
ting under which stands
would retain roughly 10-20%
of their canopy.
The planned timber sale
area is used by four known
Pacific fishers, which are
members of the same car-
nivorous mammal fam-
ily as weasels that depend
on “dense canopy closure,”
according to the complaint.
“Under all action alterna-
tives, timber harvest would
reduce canopy cover on 410
acres to the point where the
remaining habitat, if any,
would no longer support use
by Pacific fisher for its life
history activities,” the envi-
ronmental plaintiffs claim.
The species is proposed
for a “threatened” listing
under the Endangered Spe-
cies Act, primarily due to the
“habitat loss and fragmenta-
tion” from vegetation man-
agement in the region, but
receives no mandatory pro-
tections under the Griffin
Half Moon project plan, the
complaint said.
“BLM did not take a hard
look at excluding timber har-
vest from occupied Pacific
fisher habitat,” the plaintiffs
claim. “BLM did not monitor
Pacific fisher presence in the
planning area to determine if
species management objec-
tives are being met.”
Similarly, great gray owls
require “older forest stands
with larger trees,” where they
can find hunting perches and
nest sites built by other birds,
the plaintiffs said. The proj-
ect area is “perhaps the best
known population” of the
species in Oregon and a “cru-
cial link” between its popula-
tions to the north and south.
The project area has five
great gray owl nests docu-
mented by the Rogue Val-
ley Audubon Society, but the
species also won’t receive
any special protection under
the logging project plan, even
though some of the “logging
units” were excluded from
harvest under the Northwest
Forest Plan, the complaint
said.
Properties owned by BLM
in the region were withdrawn
from the Northwest Forest
Plan in 2016 when the agency
enacted a new resource man-
agement plan for 2.4 mil-
lion acres in the area, which
means the owls are no longer
part of a “survey and man-
age” program, the complaint
said.
“BLM did not incorpo-
rate best management prac-
tices, standard operating
procedures,
conservation
measures, and design crite-
ria to mitigate specific threats
to great gray owls as required
by BLM policy,” according to
the plaintiffs.
A spokesperson for the
BLM’s Medford District,
which approved the project,
said the agency doesn’t com-
ment on pending litigation.
In its record of decision,
the agency said the Griffin
Half Moon project would rely
on clear-cutting to “produce
complex early-successional
ecosystems” while also con-
tributing to the amount of
timber harvested from BLM
land on a sustained annual
level.
Clear-cutting, or “regen-
eration harvest,” is needed
in the area because “com-
plex early successional” for-
est stands make up only 2%
of the harvestable land base
in the region, while the vast
majority of the area is com-
prised of older forest stages,
the agency said.
in Vale without a federal permit.
The largest penalty in any
DEQ program came that same
year, a $1.4 million fine against
Cain Petroleum for violations
relating to a fuel spill from under-
ground storage tanks in Hillsboro
and Forest Grove.
Hydro Extrusion has 20 days
to appeal the fines.
This isn’t the first time Hydro
Extrusion has run afoul of gov-
ernment regulation. In April
2019, the company agreed to pay
$46 million to NASA and the U.S.
Department of Defense in resolv-
ing criminal and civil claims for
falsifying certifications for alu-
minum extrusions to thousands
of customers across the country,
including government contracts.
BRIEFLY
EOU training on
doing business
with government
LA GRANDE — East-
ern Oregon University’s
Small Business Develop-
ment Center is hosting a
training for business own-
ers interested in doing
business with state and
federal agencies.
The training will be
Jan. 23 from 9 a.m. to
1 p.m. at 1607 Gekeler
Lane in La Grande. It is
free, but preregistration is
required.
Attendees with be pro-
vided with an overview
on what they would need
to know to do business
with government agen-
cies, including what state
or federal certifications
they would need. Present-
ers include the Oregon
Government
Contract-
ing Assistance Program,
Small Business Admin-
istration,
Certification
Office for Business Infor-
mation and Diversity, Ore-
gon Procurement Informa-
tion Network, U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers and
Oregon Department of
Transportation.
For more information
email
eousbdc@gmail.
com or call 541-962-1532.
Construction
safety summit
coming to Bend
SALEM — The 19th
annual Mid-Oregon Con-
struction Safety Summit,
a two-day conference in
Central Oregon that will
focus on the safety and
health of workers in res-
idential, commercial and
industrial
construction,
will take place Jan. 27-28
in Bend. Fall protection,
personal protective equip-
ment, silica hazards and
electrical safety are among
the included topics.
Training sessions, from
Oregon OSHA training
for construction to work
zone safety and flagging
will be available to those
who attend, and they will
be able to attain certi-
fications or recertifica-
tions. An opportunity to
earn continuing education
credits through Oregon’s
Construction Contractors
Board and Landscape Con-
tractors Board will also be
offered.
Matt Pomerinke of
Longview,
Washing-
ton, will deliver the key-
note presentation, “Acci-
dents are Forever,” on
Jan. 28. Pomerinke, who
at 21 years old had his
arm amputated below the
elbow following a lumber
mill accident, shares his
story now to help prevent
similar accidents.
Registration
for
pre-conference
work-
shops on Jan. 27 is $50.
The Jan. 28 conference is
$85. Registration for the
OSHA 10-hour training
for construction is $140 for
both days. And the cost of
attending the silica compe-
tent person workshop on
Jan. 27 is $75.
To register, go to https://
safetyseries.cvent. com/
summit20. For questions
or help registering, call the
Oregon OSHA Conference
Section at 503-947-7411.
Tax season
officially opens
Jan. 27
PENDLETON — The
IRS has confirmed Jan.
27 as the first day the tax
agency will accept and
begin processing 2019 tax
returns.
The deadline to file tax
returns for 2019 and pay
any owed taxes is April 15,
which this year fall on a
Wednesday.
More than 150 mil-
lion individual tax returns
are expected to be filed,
according to a press release
from the IRS.
Taxpayers may prepare
returns through the IRS’s
Free File program or tax
software companies and
tax professionals before
the start date, but process-
ing returns will begin after
IRS systems open later in
January.
Oregon W-4 to be
used for changes to
state withholding
SALEM — Oregon tax-
payers making changes
to state withholding must
use an Oregon W-4 form,
according to the Oregon
Department of Revenue.
The new federal Form W-4
cannot be used for Ore-
gon withholdings since it
doesn’t use allowances, and
Oregon withholding is cal-
culated using allowances.
Prior Oregon or federal
withholding
statements
used for Oregon withhold-
ing can remain if the tax-
payer doesn’t change their
withholding elections.
“We encourage Ore-
gon taxpayers to check
their withholding for tax
year 2020,” Personal Tax
and Compliance Division
Administrator JoAnn Mar-
tin said in a press release
from ODR. “Not with-
holding enough during the
year could lead to an unex-
pected tax bill in 2021.”
A Form OR-W-4 should
be provided by employ-
ers to employees when an
employee gives them a new
federal Form W-4.
Taxpayers who are more
at risk for withholding too
little include those who:
• Started a new job in
2019 or later.
• Updated their federal
Form W-4 in 2018 or 2019.
• Previously claimed
federal deductions that
were impacted by fed-
eral tax law changes, such
as the employee business
expense deduction.
• Live in a two-earner
household.
Taxpayers can find
Form OR-W-4 and deter-
mine the correct amount
to withhold by using the
online withholding calcu-
lator on the department’s
website at www. oregon.
gov/dor.
— EO Media Group
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