From: DECONCINI Nina
Sent: Fri Feb 02 08:06:29 2018
To: YELTON-BRAM Tiffany
Subject: RE: For your review RE: DEQ/Molalla Mutual Agreement and Order and other questions about enforcement and compliance
Importance: Normal
Great! Thanks Tiffany.
________________________________________
From: YELTON-BRAM Tiffany [Tiffany.YELTON-BRAM@state.or.us]
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2018 7:48 AM
To: WHEELER Sarah; 'DECONCINI Nina'; FELDON Leah; YELTON-BRAM Tiffany
Cc: BACHMAN Jeff
Subject: RE: For your review RE: DEQ/Molalla Mutual Agreement and Order and other questions about enforcement and compliance
I will send this out when I get to the office at 8:45am.
Thanks everyone
Tiffany
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: WHEELER Sarah <Sarah.WHEELER@state.or.us>
Date: 2/1/18 10:08 PM (GMT-08:00)
To: 'DECONCINI Nina' <Nina.DECONCINI@state.or.us>, FELDON Leah <Leah.FELDON@state.or.us>, 'WHEELER Sarah' <Sarah.WHEELER@state.or.us>, YELTON-BRAM Tiffany <Tiffany.YELTON-BRAM@state.or.us>
Cc: BACHMAN Jeff <Jeff.BACHMAN@state.or.us>
Subject: RE: For your review RE: DEQ/Molalla Mutual Agreement and Order and other questions about enforcement and compliance
Great - thank you Tiffany and Jeff!
-----Original Message-----
From: DECONCINI Nina [mailto:Nina.DECONCINI@state.or.us]
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2018 9:36 PM
To: FELDON Leah; 'WHEELER Sarah'; YELTON-BRAM Tiffany
Cc: BACHMAN Jeff
Subject: RE: For your review RE: DEQ/Molalla Mutual Agreement and Order and other questions about enforcement and compliance
Looks totally ok to me too!
Nina
________________________________
From: FELDON Leah
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2018 9:02 PM
To: YELTON-BRAM Tiffany; DECONCINI Nina; 'WHEELER Sarah'
Cc: BACHMAN Jeff
Subject: RE: For your review RE: DEQ/Molalla Mutual Agreement and Order and other questions about enforcement and compliance
Sounds good, Tiffany. Thanks!
________________________________
From: YELTON-BRAM Tiffany
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2018 8:22 PM
To: FELDON Leah; DECONCINI Nina; 'WHEELER Sarah'
Cc: BACHMAN Jeff
Subject: RE: For your review RE: DEQ/Molalla Mutual Agreement and Order and other questions about enforcement and compliance
Hello everyone
Jeff and I discussed this when we met on 1/31 (yesterday). Here is the language in the August 28, 2017 letter from Ring Bender to me that has language about the meter for reading turbidity that Susan is asking about:
With regards to future turbidity violations, the City has conducted a review to evaluate the causes of turbidity issues in the summer, and why previous City staff believed it could meet Class A requirements on a regular basis when that requirement was added in the August 2014 Recycled Water Use Plan. The first issue identified was the inexperience of previous City staff. All lagoon systems have difficulty removing turbidity, a fact recognized by foundational texts such as the Operation of Wastewater Treatment Plants, Volume I, Seventh Edition, California State University, Sacramento; it's one of the known downsides to lagoon technology and experienced operators would have recognized that. To our knowledge few, if any, lagoon systems are capable of producing Class A water on a consistent basis. In addition, very recently, this review identified another issue in that the WWTP's turbidimeter was repaired, refurbished, and recalibrated by the manufacturer in April 2016, because it was not able to be calibrated. An inspection at that time revealed that it had been broken and inexpertly repaired. As I discussed with Ms. DeConcini, we do not and cannot know for certain if there were any inaccuracies in previously reported data, given that the turbidimeter was certified as calibrated prior to irrigation beginning in 2015,2 but at this time it appears likely that there were. Given that the plant has distinctly improved its maintenance and operations, the fact that turbidity numbers have increased is a strong indication that previous measurements were not accurate. We have added language to the draft MAO in order to address these potential past violations.
While my response in the previous draft is accurate (the enforcement guidance does not speak about when to require evidence of a self-reported repair), I think it would be appropriate to say- "DEQ is addressing the past turbidity exceedances in the MAO. We will follow up with the city to determine more specifically when the meter was and was not calibrated and functioning so that the violations addressed in the MAO cover the correct timeframe. To do this, any documentation that they have of the repair, refurbishment and recalibration will be requested."
Please let me know if you have any comments or concerns.
Tiffany
From: FELDON Leah
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2018 9:42 AM
To: DECONCINI Nina <DECONCINI.Nina@deq.state.or.us>; YELTON-BRAM Tiffany <YELTON-Bram.Tiffany@deq.state.or.us>; 'WHEELER Sarah' <Sarah.WHEELER@state.or.us>
Subject: RE: For your review RE: DEQ/Molalla Mutual Agreement and Order and other questions about enforcement and compliance
Hi folks,
Where are we at with this response?
Thanks! Leah
Leah K. Feldon
Deputy Director
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
Executive Assistant: Stacey O'Neil
o'neil.stacey@deq.state.or.us
From: DECONCINI Nina
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2018 6:45 AM
To: FELDON Leah; YELTON-BRAM Tiffany; 'WHEELER Sarah'
Subject: RE: For your review RE: DEQ/Molalla Mutual Agreement and Order and other questions about enforcement and compliance
Thanks for your comment Leah. There is one small typo in the 3rd paragraph (the "to" needs to be omitted.) The only other question I have is whether "it's been our practice" might be better stated as, "For other wastewater treatment plants, our enforcement guidance does not require evidence..." Just is it's directly linked.
Nina
________________________________
From: FELDON Leah
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 8:54 PM
To: YELTON-BRAM Tiffany; 'WHEELER Sarah'; DECONCINI Nina
Subject: RE: For your review RE: DEQ/Molalla Mutual Agreement and Order and other questions about enforcement and compliance Thank you for sharing, Tiffany!
Tiffany/Sarah - can you please evaluate the third paragraph in this proposed response regarding the violation against our enforcement guidance before responding and ensure that this is the proper process and response?
I'd like to hear the outcome. Otherwise, I'm good to go.
Thanks, Leah
________________________________
From: YELTON-BRAM Tiffany
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 12:39 PM
To: 'WHEELER Sarah'; DECONCINI Nina; FELDON Leah
Subject: For your review RE: DEQ/Molalla Mutual Agreement and Order and other questions about enforcement and compliance Susan Yesterday, DEQ and the city agreed on a date, time and place to discuss technical issues that the city has about their current NPDES permit, the current Total Maximum Daily Load document for the Molalla River and how those impact the designs for an upgraded or new sewage treatment plant that the city will build. This technical meeting will happen on 1/26/18 at the city's legal counsel's office. We are working on setting a date for a MAO work session in early February.
In a separate email from Jeff Bachman, you've been updated on the violations and penalties that will be covered in the MAO.
Regarding proof that the turbidity meter was fixed, I did not request that the city to provide proof that the meter was repaired or direct my staff to request such evidence because this was a self-reported violation that they took care of proactively, as opposed to having us do an enforcement action. It has been our practice to require evidence if we do an enforcement action but if the permit holder does a repair within their normal course of business, we don't require evidence.
The issue of ground water monitoring is one of the topics that we've addressed in the draft MAO. I don't have further detail to share at this time since we haven't had the work session on the MAO yet.
Tiffany Yelton Bram
WQ Source Control Manager
Northwest Regional Office
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
700 NE Multnomah St., Suite #600
Portland OR 97232
Desk 503 229 5219
Mobile 503 975 0046
From: Susan Hansen [mailto:foxglovefarm@inbox.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2018 10:53 AM
To: sarah.wheeler@state.or.us<mailto:sarah.wheeler@state.or.us>; DECONCINI Nina; Richard Whitman
Cc: rdavis@oregonian.com<mailto:rdavis@oregonian.com>; grandinetti.robert@epa.gov<mailto:grandinetti.robert@epa.gov>; jason.miner@oregon.gov<mailto:jason.miner@oregon.gov>; lauri.aunan@oregon.gov<mailto:lauri.aunan@oregon.gov>
Subject: DEQ/Molalla Mutual Agreement and Order and other questions about enforcement and compliance
Dear Ms. Wheeler, Ms. Deconcini and Director Whitman,
On May, 21, 2016, per the attached chronology prepared by DEQ regarding interactions with the City of Molalla, DEQ began to work on a MAO to supposedly solve the glaring and growing wastewater management problems connected to the City of Molalla wastewater facility. Bear Creek Recovery has closely followed the work toward a MAO. Conversations yesterday with DEQ's Jeff Bachman and Tiffany Yelton-Bram seemed to indicate that currently there is no current work going on toward a MAO.
May 31, 2016
DEQ meets with city at their legal counsel's office. Purpose is to discuss the need for the city to look at collection system and treatment plant operation holistically to get ahead of problems related to storage. Tiffany suggests an MAO to set objectives and milestones for planning documents and related projects. Inclusion of the TMDL planning documents requested in the May 13, 2016 letter in the MAO are discussed.
There are currently many outstanding Civil Penalties/fines embedded in draft MAO's. It was our understanding from talking to DEQ officials that either tiimely progress would continue to be made toward a binding MAO or that DEQ would enforce the outstanding Civil Penalties.
Ms. Wheeler noted in a recent phone call that resolving the problems with Molalla was a DEQ priority. Yet both Bachman and Yelton-Bram had no information to share about when and how DEQ would produce a new draft MAO based on the information in the Richwine report. Richwine found that Molalla is way over capacity to manage its current wastewater load and in need of "finding" $32-38 million dollars for a new wastewater plant. DEQ notes that the unlined lagoons are leaking about 173,000 gallons of wastewater a day into groundwater and we still have no test well program proposed in spite of DEQ's "ask" over a year ago for a Molalla plan to monitor groundwater movement and the potential for well contamination.
In August 2017, Molalla's lawyers explained in a letter (attached) that turbidity was likely inaccurately metered for many months due to broken equipment. Ms. Yelton-Bram indicated that DEQ told Molalla to fix that problem but said DEQ had required no proof from Molalla that such a fix was actually done. Why would DEQ fail to require proof that a serious problem outlined by Molalla's lawyers regarding turbidity was adequately fixed?
Please respond and explain what kind of plan/timeline is in place for DEQ to either produce a viable MAO or to enforce the many outstanding pending Civil Penalties against Molalla. When will DEQ require ground water monitoring via a test well program?
Sincerely,
Susan Hansen
Bear Creek Recovery