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20 years and still counting
Monday, February 1, 2010
by Robert Jump
Even before the City of Coquille began planning a new sewage treatment plant, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality was working on establishing a temperature standard (Total Maximum Daily Load) for the Coquille River. With the city now nearly ready to break ground on the plant, it finds itself still waiting for a standard.
“The TMDLs are the limits that drive the design process,” Coquille City Manager Terence O’Connor. “Not having the TMDLs has kept the city's engineers from completing the design report moving on to the completion of the waste water plant.”
The problem has been going on so long that it has become a joke among city staff.
“At the end of summer (2009), staff was waiting DEQ 's word on the TMDL's,” O’Connor said. “We were assured the results were coming any time now. In late August early September, there was a conversation between myself the DEQ engineer, and John Higgins on the topic of TMDLs and we were told the TMDLs would be done before the holidays, exasperatedly I asked if he meant Groundhog Day.”
Groundhog Day has been held on Feb. 2, since 1886 in Punxsutawney, Penn. While the lack of a TMDL is making DEQ the butt of jokes, it is also costing the city an untold amount of money. The project, originally estimated to cost about $9 million, has now blossomed to over $10 with no end in sight while state agencies continue the process and threaten the city over discharges and spills to the river from the antiquated sewage treatment plant.
