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The state is fining a Eugene wood treatment plant more than $200,000 for hazardous waste and water quality violations that allegedly occurred over the last five years.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued J.H. Baxter & Co. $223,440 in fines Wednesday for violations that included the illegal treatment of 1.7 million gallons of hazardous waste between 2015-19 and two unpermitted discharges of untreated storm water in 2019, according to a DEQ penalty notice sent to the company Wednesday.
DEQ also is ordering the company to create three plans for investigating and sampling to better understand and mitigate the environmental impacts of the violations, according to a Thursday news release. The plans also would improve the plant's storm water management.
J.H. Baxter & Co. can request a hearing to dispute DEQ's claims.
"J.H. Baxter & Co. has always done our best to comply with regulatory requirements," company president Georgia Baxter, said in a statement. "To that end we continue to work with the DEQ site clean-up program and the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency's Cleaner Air Oregon program. We care about the health and well being of our neighbors and employees and will continue to work diligently to protect human health and the environment."
The J.H. Baxter plant, which has operated on Roosevelt Avenue since the 1940s, has a long history of environmental problems. Most recently, DEQ and the Oregon Health Authority began investigating elevated levels of dioxins, a group of toxic chemical compounds, in soil samples taken as part of a 2019 cleanup mandate for the facility.
The fines issued Wednesday are not related to recent findings of high levels of dioxins.
DEQ: Liquid pollution evaporated incorrectly
DEQ alleges in the penalty notice workers at the J.H. Baxter plant on 175 days between December 2015 and October 2019 bypassed pollution controls on four pieces of machinery to "boil off" liquid toxic waste generated by wood treatment operations.
The waste the plant produces includes creosote, arsenic and other toxic chemicals.
During those days, the plant used its retorts, used to pressure treat wood, to evaporate 1.7 million gallons of the liquid pollution instead of using its dedicated evaporator, which wasn't functioning between March and October 2019 and at other times, the notice said.
The plant's permit doesn't allow the use of retorts as waste evaporation units. The permit requires using environmental controls such as vacuum pumps while operating retorts.
The notice alleges plant workers would fill the retorts between one-half and one-third of their capacity each time they boiled off the waste. The four retorts they used have capacities between 30,081 gallons and 50,766, according to the DEQ penalty notice.
The fine for treating the waste without a permit is $178,905, according to the notice.
Notice: Untreated storm water spilled in ditch that goes to Amazon Creek
The notice alleges the plant on occasion improperly managed the toxic waste.
The DEQ penalty notice also alleges the J.H. Baxter plant's storm water treatment pond overflowed Feb. 25, 2019, spilling an unknown quantity of untreated storm water over 5.5 hours into the facility's south storm ditch, which discharges into Amazon Creek.
The notice alleges the pond overflowed again on April 8-9, 2019, and spilled 50,000 gallons of untreated storm water into the south storm ditch.
The notice also alleges the plant's treated storm water discharge in March and February of 2020 had too much copper, and the company didn't conduct mandated sampling in October 2019.
The fine for the two untreated storm water discharge violations is $14,735, according to the DEQ notice. The fine for exceeding copper levels in water discharge is $8,800.
Additional penalties include:
$5,700 for failing to provide employees hazardous waste training
$6,900 for failing to conduct a complete hazardous waste determination for all residues generated at the facility, including the waste evaporated in retorts
$8,400 for failing to maintain the facility to limit release of hazardous waste
Previous coverage: DEQ: Toxins found again in soil near J.H. Baxter wood treatment facility in Eugene
Contact reporter Adam Duvernay at aduvernay@registerguard.com. Follow on Twitter @DuvernayOR.