Ashland Sewage Permit Comments

October 18, 2021

NWEA’s Ashland Sewage Permit Comments submitted to Oregon DEQ

Thirteen years after the City of Ashland’s permit to discharge treated sewage expired, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has finally gotten around to proposing a new permit. Even with all that time to consider doing a good job, the draft permit is woefully deficient, according to NWEA’s comments submitted on October 18, 2021.

The comments focus on two main areas. First, DEQ blindly relies on old clean-up plans called Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs). Summarized, NWEA points out that if water temperatures in Bear and Ashland Creeks have stayed the same or increased 14 years after the completion of a TMDL clean-up plan for temperature, DEQ cannot continue to allow Ashland to discharge temperature at the level established by that plan. Likewise, 30 years after DEQ’s TMDLs purportedly addressed water chemistry alterations caused by nutrient pollution that has fueled aquatic weeds and growth of algae, DEQ can no longer rely on the TMDL’s wasteload allocations for Ashland if the water has not been cleaned up.

The second main issue is Ashland’s proposal to offset its excess temperature pollution by pollution credit trading. While superficially appealing—Ashland will plant lots of trees—there is absolutely no requirement that all these trees will result in water that is cooler for fish, which is the goal of the Clean Water Act. In addition, NWEA points out: “Allowing permittees to establish their own permit limits, whether through trading provisions or other permit provisions, amounts to an impermissible form of self-regulation.”

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