EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — The state has fined a Eugene wood treatment plant more than $200,000 for hazardous waste and water quality violations that regulators say occurred over the last five years.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued J.H. Baxter & Co. $223,440 in fines Wednesday for violations that included the illegal treatment of 1.7 million gallons of hazardous waste between 2015-19 and two unpermitted discharges of untreated storm water in 2019, The Register-Guard reported.

DEQ also is ordering the company to create plans for investigating and sampling to better understand and mitigate the environmental impacts of the violations.

“J.H. Baxter & Co. has always done our best to comply with regulatory requirements,” company president Georgia Baxter, said in a statement. “To that end we continue to work with the DEQ site clean-up program and the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency’s Cleaner Air Oregon program. We care about the health and well being of our neighbors and employees and will continue to work diligently to protect human health and the environment.”

J.H. Baxter & Co. can request a hearing to dispute DEQ’s claims but it wasn’t clear if the company plans to do so.

The plant has operated since the 1940s and has a history of environmental problems. Most recently, DEQ and the Oregon Health Authority began investigating elevated levels of dioxins, a group of toxic chemical compounds, in soil samples taken as part of a 2019 cleanup mandate at the plant.

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Boise Cascade says it may close a plywood mill in eastern Oregon at the end of the year and lay off all the 229 people who work there.

“We haven’t made a definite decision yet to curtail (production) at the facility, but we wanted to give the (regulatory) notice to our employees that it is a likely possibility,” spokeswoman Lisa Chapman wrote in an email Tuesday.

Wildfires have limited access to timber for the Elgin mill, according to Chapman, but she said the main factor threatening the plant is a restrictive order from the state Department of Environmental Quality regarding contamination in the plant’s wastewater.

Boise Cascade received a state water quality permit in 2018, according to Chapman, but she said the state issued an order this past April to restrict water use because of dioxin contaminants.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports Boise Cascade has filed a lawsuit to overturn the order and Chapman said the company is having ongoing conversation with regulators.

Harry Esteve, communications manager for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, said the department sought to place limits on Boise Cascade after learning of contaminants in the water that originated at the company’s landfill.

“DEQ is working diligently and in good faith toward a settlement,” Esteve said.

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