Posts Tagged ‘ deq ’

Oregon’s Dirty Dozens

October 21, 2009
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Oregon DEQ has just finished the first big step towards regulating 118 toxic, or potentially toxic, chemicals.

DEQ calls them “persistent pollutants”.  They’re persistent because they take a long time to break down in the environment.  Instead, the levels of these chemicals accumulate in water, soil and wildlife.  They work their way up the food chain and can eventually harm people, too.

Some of the pollutants will have familiar names, such as mercury, PCBs and DDT.  Others are not so familiar, but they’re found in products such as weed killers, prescription drugs and even personal care products.  Many of these pollutants have entered the environment through our sewers.

Over the past several months DEQ has studied which of these chemicals deserve the most attention.  Its final list of Priority Persistent Chemicals, AKA the P3 list, was released this week.   But there’s much more work to be done.

Here are a few items from the DEQ list.

  • Halogenated flame retardants:  This includes PBDEs, a class of chemicals used in a variety of consumer products such as carpeting, furniture, mattresses, computers, and televisions.  Oregon and Washington have banned the most common types of PBDEs, but their levels continue to rise in the Pacific Northwest.
  • Pesticides and herbicides: DEQ says some of these are suspected of disrupting the production of hormones in wildlife and humans.
  • Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care products: This list includes some synthetic hormones, an anti-psychotic medication, food additives and disinfectants.  Also suspected of disruption the hormone system.

What’s Next?

Over the coming months, DEQ staff will start looking at the sources of these pollutants and try to figure out how to reduce their presence in Oregon waters.  It will also determine how much of these pollutants will be allowed in wastewater.  If levels rise above a certain “trigger point”, then the operators of Oregon’s 52 largest sewage systems will have to take steps to reduce them.  All these steps should be completed by July of 2011.

The work to fix this problem began when the 2007 Legislature approved Senate Bill 737.

For more information see DEQ’s website on SB 737.

Extreme Environmental Makeover Proposed For PGE Power Plant

June 1, 2009
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One of the biggest sources of air pollution in the state, the PGE coal-fired power plant near Boardman, may soon undergo a very costly environmental makeover.  Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality wants PGE to install more than $470 million worth of pollution controls by 2018.

The goal?  Cut emissions of nitrous oxide and sulphur dioxide by 80%.

The benefits?  Major reductions in haze and acid rain in the Columbia River Gorge, and major reductions in haze at a dozen wilderness areas around the state.

DEQ staff will submit the rules to Commissioners at their next meeting on June 18-19.  The Boardman clean up is the centerpiece of a proposed Oregon Regional Haze plan that’s designed to improve visibility across the state.  Commissioners could vote to adopt the plan, or ask staff to work on other options.

They’ll have to do something.  The Environmental Protection Agency is requiring states to reduce haze at what are called Class 1 Wilderness areas.  There are a dozen of them in scattered throughout Oregon, so reducing haze at these places will also clear the air in the rest of the state.  Some of the better known Class 1 Wilderness areas are located near Mt. Hood, the Three Sisters, Crater Lake and Hells Canyon.

PGE asked for so-called “decision points” which would allow them to stop spending money on fixing up the plant, if they agreed to decommission it at some later point.  DEQ staff turned down that proposal, but says if PGE decides to shut down Boardman it can always file for a rule change.

While $470 million sounds costly, DEQ estimates it will only increase electricity bills for PGE customers by 3.5%, or about $3 a month for the average household.  If the rules are approved, the first phase of pollution controls would have to be installed starting in 2011.