DEQ fines Baker County mine owner $57K
Aug. 24—The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has fined the operator of a mine in south Baker County $57,387 for several alleged violations, including discharging wastewater from a settling pond into Clarks Creek without a permit.
The DEQ issued the fine last week to K&E Excavating Inc. of Salem.
The company has 20 days from the date it received a notice of the fine to file an appeal.
According to a DEQ notice, the company owns and operates the Buckland mine on Clarks Creek Road about 3 miles east of Bridgeport. The area is about 22 air miles southeast of Baker City.
The placer mining operation is seeking gold from deposits along Clarks Creek, a tributary of the Burnt River.
The area is one of Baker County's historic mining districts, and includes the former town of Clarksville, founded in the early 1860s.
K&E Excavation has a permit that authorizes miners to store water in three settling ponds, but not to allow water to flow into Clarks Creek, which is close by, according to DEQ.
"The mine is permitted to discharge wastewater to a closed-loop three-pond system," Laura Gleim, a public affairs specialist at DEQ's Eastern Region office in Bend, wrote in an email to the Herald.
"What our inspectors discovered when they went out there is that the mine had created two additional unpermitted wastewater ponds, which are connected to both groundwater and surface water," Gleim wrote. "The mine was pumping wastewater from its permitted ponds (which are supposed to be self-contained, closed-loop ponds) to the "east wastewater groundwater pond/infiltration pond," then through an unpermitted conveyance ditch to the "west wastewater groundwater pond," which is fed by groundwater and so is a water of the state. Wastewater then overflows from that west pond into conveyances that reach Clarks Creek."
According to the violation notice, a representative from K&E Excavating sent multiple engineering reports in the winter and spring of 2022 showing the closed-loop system with three ponds. None of those showed that a pump had been installed in one of the ponds "to discharge overflow water" into the creek.
DEQ officials inspected the mine on May 11, 2022, and according to the violation notice, they found that water was flowing from one pond, "through a series of wetlands, channels and other conveyances associated with Clarks Creek before eventually discharging to Clarks Creek."
Kerry Kuenzi, president of K&E Excavating, had not returned a phone message by press time on Friday, Aug. 26.
The DEQ notice breaks down the total fine based on several types of violations.
—Exceeding the pH limit in settling ponds based on reports the company submitted to DEQ. There were 14 violations between Aug. 16, 2021, and Dec. 8, 2021, according to DEQ. The total fine is $5,400.
—Discharging wastewater without a permit, for a fine of $16,800.
—Discharging stormwater without a permit, for a fine of $23,187.
—Making "false representations on documents required to be submitted to DEQ," a reference to the engineering plans that didn't show the use of a pump. The fine is $12,000.
Company's second DEQ fine in 2 years
In May 2021 the DEQ issued an $8,400 fine to K&E Excavating for releasing about 2,000 gallons of wastewater from a pond at a different mine in Baker County in December 2020.
The water flowed into the Burnt River, according to DEQ.
That incident happened at the High Bar mine along Pine Creek about 6 miles northeast of Hereford. The area is several miles northwest of the Buckland mine.
The company reached an agreement in which it paid a $4,200 fine, according to DEQ.
