Oregon Water Pollution Permits Fix Stalls

One year has passed since NWEA obtained an enforceable court order that forces the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to reduce and eliminate its backlog of water pollution discharge permits. That order also included required actions that DEQ is to take to address the underlying reasons for its inability to issue timely discharge permits.

In a March 31, 2020 letter to state officials, NWEA summarized the status of DEQ’s compliance with the court order and urged the Legislature and Oregon Environmental Quality Commission to maintain a high level of oversight over DEQ’s permitting program.

The letter highlighted the following primary problems:

• DEQ is not currently planning on issuing sufficient permits on an annual basis to comply with the court order to eliminate and reduce the NPDES permit backlog;

• DEQ does not appear to have taken any of the steps to which it committed to obtain the data necessary upon which to base new NPDES permits—for example the issuance of data collection protocols, timeframes, guidance, and plans—thereby removing a key barrier to the timely issuance of permits;

• While some steps have been taken to identify subject matter experts within the DEQ permit organization, more needs to be done;

• DEQ has failed to make available to the public the extra-regulatory enforcement actions it has been taking to prop up its failed permit program;

• DEQ’s 2019 annual report to the Commission—and therefore to the public—uses general boilerplate reasons for delay, thereby rendering it virtually unusable to understand whether DEQ has tackled the underlying reasons for its delays in issuing NPDES permits; and

• DEQ has failed to adequately report its lack of action on NPDES permits that have been administratively continued for ten years or more.