Trying to add a payment method? You can do this on the 
QuickTake:
Oregon's environmental regulator called out Oregon Industrial Lumber Products for incomplete monitoring of stormwater. The company president said the slip-up was due to staffing changes and that the company has since kept up with testing.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality fined a Springfield mill $6,400 for failing to submit required stormwater samples, according to the agency’s monthly enforcement roster.
Stormwater that flows through industrial sites like mills is regulated under state discharge permits. As stormwater washes over a property, it can pick up pollutants and carry them into rivers and streams, threatening water quality and fish habitat.
Oregon Industrial Lumber Products, at 3950 Marcola Road along the McKenzie River, operates under one of those permits. The wood manufacturing company produces beams and moldings. It doesn’t use chemicals to treat its wood, and dries lumber in kilns with a chip-fired boiler, according to president John Burwell McDowell.
By submitting samples under the permit, the family-owned business proves to the state it is monitoring and preventing pollution — checking for dust and debris from milling, heavy metals like copper and lead from building exteriors, and oil and petroleum from transportation.
As a small company, “everyone wears lots of hats,” said McDowell, who tasks one of his employees with collecting stormwater samples as part of their job duties. They use state-approved kits supplied by a local lab, pulling samples where runoff flows into a channel.
The company must take two samples four times a year, spaced out and timed around rainfall so results aren’t diluted. A lab analyzes the samples and sends results directly to DEQ. The mill typically hears from the agency only when there’s a problem.
McDowell received notice of a civil penalty in March, though the violation itself happened during the 2023-24 monitoring period. According to DEQ, the mill missed one of the samples, submitting only three of four.
The mill got a similar citation in its 2020-21 period for not submitting samples, according to the department.
Both times, McDowell pointed to staffing transitions. In the latest citation, he said testing duties shifted to someone new, who missed the deadline for one reporting round.
“We dropped the ball and didn’t get it done, because of administrative changes,” he said.
McDowell, an outdoorsman who grew up along the McKenzie River, said he respects the protocols. The company has since completed a full year of reporting without problems, he said.
“I care, and our company cares,” he said. “We’ve always kind of taken the approach that we probably have to go above and beyond because of our closeness to both the McKenzie and obviously all the drinking water.”
The McKenzie River is the sole drinking water source for 200,000 people in the Eugene area. Oregon Industrial Lumber Products sits next to the Eugene Water & Electric Board’s Hayden Bridge Filtration Plant, which draws from the river.
The company and EWEB share an entrapment box in their runoff channels, which collects pollutants so they can be monitored, McDowell said. EWEB was not part of the citation.
