Oregon looks into waste spill at Gordon Smith's company

"Oregon looks into spill at Smith's plant"
Violation - Wastewater from processing corn gets into Pine Creek and could harm fish
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
SCOTT LEARN
The Oregonian Staff

Milky wastewater from Smith Frozen Foods, the company owned by U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, has again reached a creek next to the eastern Oregon plant, a scenario that has cost Smith political points in the past.

The company discovered the wash water from processing corn spilling out of a stormwater pipe that drains to Pine Creek at 10:30 a.m. July 29.

Tom Lindley, the company's attorney on environmental matters, said workers quickly contained the spill, keeping it to fewer than 100 gallons, and reported it to the state Department of Environmental Quality within a half-hour.

On Aug. 8, the DEQ issued a notice saying that the discharge from the Weston plant in Umatilla County violated Oregon environmental law. The nitrogen content of food-processing wastewater can drive down stream oxygen levels and harm fish, said Mitch Wolgamott, interim eastern region administrator for DEQ. The spill is considered a class 1 violation, the agency's most serious level.

Wolgamott said an inspector visited the spill site several days after the report, so the agency can't pinpoint a spill amount. But there's no evidence that the spill, first reported Monday by Willamette Week, was large or did any significant damage.

The violation could result in the company's sixth water quality penalty since 1992, when it was hit with a $75,000 assessment for a large 15-day spill that killed aquatic life in a 23-mile stretch downstream from the plant.

That spill, which eventually led to a $25,000 fine and $100,000 in plant improvements, was used against Smith in his unsuccessful initial bid for the U.S. Senate in 1996.

DEQ tightened the company's permit after that, and the four fines since have ranged from $900 to $4,800. The most recent came last summer, also during the corn processing season. The company was hit with a $3,000 penalty for allowing 100 to 200 gallons of process water to reach the creek.

Smith, who is running for re-election in November, owns the company. He relinquished day-to-day management after being elected to the Senate. His campaign and the company referred questions to Lindley.

Normally, the company's hundreds of millions of gallons of vegetable wastewater is routed to a man-made lagoon, Lindley said, then used to water nearby crops.

On July 29, he said, it appears wastewater dripped from a conveyer belt moving corn husks and cobs after processing, then infiltrated a stormwater pipe that runs to the creek. Workers discovered the spill during a daily inspection, stopped up the pipe and pumped milky water out of the creek.

The company is working with a consulting engineer to repair the problem, Lindley said.

Posted August 20, 2008
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