OCWAP Enforcement Action Summary:
Oregon Clean Water Action Project sent Weyerhaeuser Company a Clean Water Act notice of intent to sue letter concerning its Northwest Hardwoods Prairie Road facility on behalf of Sierra Club on October 28, 2005. (A Clean Water Act notice of intent to sue letter notifies the recipient of how it has violated the Clean Water Act and gives the recipient an opportunity to address and resolve its violations outside of court.)
OCWAP’s letter to Weyerhaeuser Company regarding the Northwest Hardwoods Prairie Road facility concerned discharges of levels of total suspended solids in excess of permit benchmark levels over the past ten years.
Weyerhaeuser contacted OCWAP within a couple of weeks of receiving OCWAP’s letter, and a site vist was sheduled for December 1. OCWAP and Sierra Club representatives attended the site visit, where Weyerhaeuser explained its past and continuing efforts to get total suspended solids in stormwater discharges from the site below benchmarks levels, and took visitors on a walking tour of the site and its various storm sewers. Total suspended solids problems at the site appear to be primarily or exclusively related to difficulty keeping wood particles out of the stormwater that discharges from the site.
Weyerhaeuser is continuing to work toward getting total suspended solids below permit benchmark levels at this time, and OCWAP and Sierra Club are involved in ongoing discussions with Weyerhaeuser concerning a legal agreement addressing Weyerhaeuser’s past total suspended solids issues as well as any future total suspended solids issues.
