“More fines for Port of Morrow as unpermitted wastewater dumping continues”

April 8, 2024 Oregon Rural Action

By Alex Baumhardt | Oregon Capital Chronicle | April 8, 2024

The Port of Morrow continued this winter to spread more nitrogen-contaminated wastewater across eastern Oregon farm fields than permitted, further harming an already contaminated aquifer supplying drinking water to thousands of residents in Morrow and Umatilla counties. Officials at the state’s second largest port, which sits along the Columbia River in Boardman, knew this would happen. So did regulators at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality who slapped the port with a $727,000 fine on Thursday for more than 880 permit violations over 80 days from November 2023 through February 2024. “DEQ is continuing to hold the port accountable by issuing penalties when violations occur. It often takes time for facilities to construct necessary pollution control systems to bring them into compliance,” Antony Vorobyov, a spokesperson for the department, said in an email. Vorobyov added that the bulk of excess wastewater was applied to fields deemed at low risk for leaching nitrogen and nitrate into the aquifer.