Industrial Storm Water Enforcement Initiative

Through regular review of agency files, tips and anonymous phone calls, and even our own water quality sampling and monitoring program, NEDC is regularly made aware of illegal industrial stormwater discharges. Through our industrial stormwater enforcement initiative, NEDC works to insure that corporate polluters throughout the region obtain necessary Clean Water Act permits and then comply with the terms of those permits. We also require the installation of appropriate filtration and treatment technology, and work with polluters to remedy the environmental harm caused by their illegal discharges.

In April, 2004, for example, NEDC initiated litigation against two industrial polluters in the Columbia Slough: Waste Management of Oregon and Roadmaster, Inc. We successfully resolved both of those lawsuits. Roadmaster cleaned up its site so dramatically that it was able to obtain a "no exposure" certification exempting it from NPDES permit requirements. Waste Management made over $250,000 in infrastructural changes at its facility to remedy its stormwater pollution problems, and also agreed to fund a major habitat restoration project in the Columbia Slough. Waste Management also provided funding to establish the Lower Columbia Basin Water Quality Monitoring Fund, an account at a nationally-renowned lab where public interest organizations throughout the region can have water quality samples analyzed free of charge. NEDC would like to thank both of these companies for collaboratively working with us to develop alternatives to protracted litigation that directly benefit the Columbia Slough.

View 60-day notice of intent to sue under the Clean Water Act:

Waste Management of Oregon

Roadmaster, Inc.

Our stormwater enforcement work is often based on data we collect while out on the water: Read an article in the Portland Tribune.