PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has fined the state’s largest glass container recycler over $1 million for repeated air quality violations.

The agency said last week it had issued a $1.03 million fine to Owens-Brockway, a subsidiary of glass manufacturing giant O-I Glass Inc., The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. The state said the fine was issued after the company repeatedly failed to adhere to the emissions standards required under its permit.

“O-I is aware of the announcement and is currently reviewing the scope but cannot provide comment on pending regulatory or legal matters,” O-I Glass spokesperson Jim Woods told the newspaper in an email.

This is the ninth time that Owens-Brockway has been fined by the state for air quality violations since 2004. While the state could revoke the company’s permit for ongoing violations, Oregon depends heavily on Owens-Brockway to be able to recycle glass containers.

Owens-Brockway’s Portland plant is the only large glass container manufacturing plant in Oregon, according to Harry Esteve, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

A glass melting furnace at the Portland plant exceeded the state’s particulate matter limit during three tests from May 2019 to August 2020, according to the state enforcement notice. The company has exceeded opacity limits — the degree to which visibility is lessened by pollution — at two glass melting furnaces at least 50 times since 2009, according to the state. Opacity is an indicator of particulate matter being released into the air which can cause serious health problems, according to an enforcement notice from the state.

Emissions from the furnace also exceeded the state’s opacity limit during tests in April 2020 and March 2021, and the company failed to notify the state of the violations in a timely manner, according to the state enforcement notice.

The company was also supposed to submit a risk assessment report and work plan to the state by May 21 to comply with the Cleaner Air Oregon program but missed the deadline, according to the state, which has now asked the company to submit the report by Aug. 19.

The state also said that the company must consider reducing production levels to comply with its permit.

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MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — A Florida-based company has been fined over $74,000 for improperly sending asbestos-tainted debris to a landfill in southern Oregon.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality described the violations as “major magnitude violations,” but said the problems have since been “properly abated and removed,” The Mail Tribune reported.

The state fined BACH Land Development for improperly clearing a dozen manufactured home sites containing asbestos after last year’s fires between late November and early December and “conducting an unlicensed asbestos abatement project” at Medford Estates.

The company has until April 4 to contest the fine.

BACH Land Development “is not, and has never been licensed by DEQ as an asbestos abatement contractor,” according to findings of fact surrounding the improper cleanups before staff at the Dry Creek Landfill refused the company’s loads Dec. 7 because of improper documentation that failed to state whether it contained asbestos.

The refusal by the landfill prompted DEQ inspections in December at Medford Estates.

By Dec. 17, the contractor had properly sealed all involved piles of debris containing asbestos, and by late January had hired DEQ licensed subcontractor Asbestos Control Group to mark and properly dispose of all involved debris, according to DEQ.

BACH Land Development has had no prior violations, according to DEQ.

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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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More than a decade after the Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas project was first proposed, it’s still in limbo.

The Oregon Department of State Lands (DSL) has received a for the Coos Bay project. The application is for three main elements: a liquefied natural gas (LNG) slip and access channel, an LNG terminal with a capacity of 320,000 cubic meters and a 36-inch-diameter natural gas pipeline running 229 miles from Coos Bay to Malin in Southern Oregon. The DSL previously rejected a 2017 application based on project purpose and need, impacts to recreation in the bay, fill dimensions and volumes, and wetland mitigation.

Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is reviewing the project team’s latest application for federal approval. That was submitted in September 2017.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality also is reviewing the project proposal.

DSL has until Dec. 6 to review the most recent removal-fill permit application for completeness. If deemed complete, a 60-day public review and comment period will begin. DSL has tentatively scheduled five public hearings for this purpose:

• Jan. 7 from 5:30-8 p.m. at Klamath Falls Community College, 7390 South Sixth St. in Klamath Falls,
• Jan. 8, in Jackson County, at a time and location TBA,
• Jan. 9, from 5:30-8 p.m. at Seven Feathers Casino, 146 Chief Miwaleta Lane in Canyonville,
• Jan. 10, from 5:30-8 p.m. at the Mill Casino, 3201 Tremont Ave. in North Bend, and
• Jan. 15, from 5:30-8 p.m. at the Department of State Lands, Land Board Room, 775 Summer St. N.E. in Salem.

Calgary, Alberta-based Pembina Pipeline is the primary investor. The company still anticipates investing somewhere between $8 billion and $10 billion in the project, which was initially proposed for a 240-acre Coos Bay site in 2007.

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