Black Butte Ranch appeals Oregon DEQ’s $5,100 fine over higher ammonia discharges into Indian Ford Creek

Problem 'a combination of process and equipment,' CEO says

BLACK BUTTE RANCH, Ore. (KTVZ) – The Black Butte Ranch resort is appealing part of a $5,100 fine imposed earlier this year by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality for exceeding ammonia limits in its wastewater discharge into Indian Ford Creek, noting that it self-reported the issue and resolved it as quickly as possible.

DEQ noted in issuing the civil penalty -- the smallest of eight the agency issued in January for environmental violations -- that the effluent discharge exceeded daily maximum ammonia concentrations on seven days between Jan. 25 and March 2 of last year. The agency also confirmed that the resort has filed an appeal.

“Ammonia is highly toxic to fish and other aquatic life,” wrote Kieran O’Donnell, manager of DEQ’s Office of Compliance and Enforcement, in its notice to a resort representative. “By failing to comply with your limits, you created a risk of harm to aquatic life in Indian Ford Creek.”

Black Butte Ranch CEO Shawn McCance said the resort west of Sisters has its own wastewater treatment facility and self-reports the ammonia discharges, among other statistics, on a daily basis, based on tests performed in a third-party laboratory.

“For seven days last winter, our ammonia discharge came back higher than we expected it to be, that it should have been, according to DEQ,” McCance told NewsChannel 21 on Wednesday. “We went into action right away on how to fix this, reached out to our third-party engineering consultants.”

“We think the problem was a combination of process and equipment,” McCance said. “We think we isolated what the issue was. It took a little while to get the issue resolved.”

“There’s a timing delay involved in this,” he explained. “When you first get the report from the third-party lab, you’re already three or four days behind the curve. Then you spring into action, it takes time to get to a result. The third party has to validate your results.”

“You’re dealing with micro-organisms breaking down waste solids,” McCance said. “It becomes a little bit art, a little bit science – ‘The bugs are dying,’ how to keep the bugs alive.”

“We’re not contesting a lot of things to DEQ,” the CEO said, noting that the issue was self-reported. They are contesting the “mental state” finding in the civil penalty formula, in which the agency claims the resort’s “conduct was negligent” and “failed to exercise reasonable care to avoid the foreseeable risk of committing the violation.”

McCance said, “They make some assumptions on 'mental state' that are a little bit out of line, so we’re contesting some of that.”

The Black Butte Ranch official noted it’s the first such DEQ fine the resort has received in its 50-year history. And he said it prompted some changes.

“We purchased our own lab equipment,” McCance said. “It’s not certified, but at least we can use our in-house lab to test the results of the effluent discharge,” to see if the ammonia levels ruse too high.

“Our engineers told us even the higher levels that were released were miniscule, compare to other releases of ammonia, some being natural.” And he said based on that, they are “not worried about the downstream impact” of the higher discharges for those seven days.