Quarry near Coburg fined for operating without stormwater permit
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has fined a quarry south of Coburg almost $70,500 for operating without a stormwater discharge permit after muddy water from the site went into the McKenzie River in December.
DEQ fined Coburg Road Quarry about $12,600 for allegedly discharging muddy stormwater down an access road and ditch into the McKenzie River on Dec. 6 and another $70,455 for operating the quarry without a proper permits.
DEQ also ordered the company in a March 18 notice to apply for the required stormwater permit. DEQ said it may recalculate the cost of the penalties if the company gets a permit and installs devices to control erosion of sediment.
Coburg Road Quarry owner Vernon Egge had an informal meeting Tuesday with DEQ about the issues.
Egge told The Register-Guard he doesn't believe his quarry requires a stormwater control permit because water normally doesn't leave the site. He said it's prevented from doing so by an existing stormwater retention system.
A DEQ penalty notice sent to the business March 18 said turbid industrial stormwater, considered pollution by DEQ, discharged from the site Dec. 6 and flowed into the McKenzie River. The next day, Oregon's Department of Geology and Mining sent a pre-enforcement notice informing the company it was required to apply for a stormwater permit.
Coburg Road Quarry still has not applied for the permit, DEQ spokesman Dylan Darling said.
Egge said the Dec. 6 discharge was a one-time event caused by a failure of his stormwater control system. The spill happened because material fell from a truck and blocked a stormwater swale, he said. The swales are part of a runoff prevention system installed at the state's direction after a turbid water spill in 2016, Egge said.
He said the protections he built back then have since kept stormwater from draining out of the quarry.
DEQ fined the quarry in 2016 for releasing turbid water into the McKenzie River and it was ordered to get a permit. But the company and state agreed no permit would be required if improvements were made to prevent discharges.
Darling said the company was warned after that settlement any future discharges would make a permit necessary.
Contact reporter Adam Duvernay at aduvernay@registerguard.com. Follow on Twitter @DuvernayOR.
Editor's note: A picture in earlier version of this article showed one of the company's quarries, but not the one DEQ recently fined. The photo has been updated.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Quarry near Coburg fined for operating without storm water permit
