Some residents, farmers and a farmland conservation group in Marion County, Oregon, say they are outraged after finding out a local farm owner, along with the services of an excavating company, dug an open pit and allegedly violated Oregon land use protections and environmental laws.
An Oregon environmental agency has ordered the company, All-Ways Excavating USA LLC, to shut down its operations at the site after unloading debris on the Aurora farm without a permit or any local code enforcement approval. The company argues it has not violated any disposal rules.
In a notice sent in March to the landowner, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality cites six violations, three of which are a class one violation — the most serious.
Jeff Bachman, an environmental law specialist at DEQ, said the notice is a first step in the enforcement process.
“At the most basic level, we have to determine what got put in that pit,” Bachman said. “And we’ve been given some data. We requested the property owner do some sampling to figure out at least in terms of the solid materials.”
An aerial photo captured by a neighbor shows an alleged dump site on farmland in Marion County. One operator is seen washing debris into a pit dug on a hazelnut farm in Aurora, Ore.
Courtesy of Scott Chambers
Some of the violations include unloading solid waste and wastewater without a permit, disposing of waste where it’s likely to reach waters of the state and failing to obtain DEQ review and approval of plans for a wastewater disposal system, according to documents obtained by OPB.
DEQ only discovered the site following a complaint after neighbors noticed the farm owner began building a gravel road that led to the back of the property around summer of 2023. One neighbor took aerial drone photos which revealed an asphalt pad next to a large pit that had been dug. The excavating company had also dammed a natural drain that leads to a creek which goes through the Champoeg State Heritage Area and eventually drains into the Willamette River.
Documents provided by the excavating company to DEQ note that most of the debris is clean fill — defined as material such as soil, rock, concrete or asphalt paving — which does not contain pollutants that could impact the waters of the state or public health.
Some of the debris includes stone cuttings and dust from a countertop company, while most of it came from utility company job sites like Portland General Electric and third-party contractors working with other utility companies, but Ben Williams, a member of Friends of French Prairie, a farmland preservation group and affiliate of 1000 Friends of Oregon, said that raises some concerns.
“Those [job sites] are either on the sides of roads or in a right of way where the city or the utility owns the property,” Williams said. “What runs off of paved roads? It’s any exhaust oil and gasoline, brake pad dust from vehicles and micro particles of rubber that are eroded off of tires. All considered hazardous waste.”
A spokesperson for PGE said once that company was made aware of the situation, it ceased activities at the site.
Thomas Benke, an attorney for the excavating company, said the debris is not solid waste, because most of it came from utility trench job sites that were determined to have no pollutants — Oregon law allows DEQ to exempt clean fill from regulation as solid waste in many instances.
“The property owner, a family owned operation of more than 100 years, in coordination with All-Ways Excavating USA LLC, is importing clean fill — rock, soil and water — to raise the elevation of an unused area at the edge of an orchard to make it arable for filberts [hazelnuts] and other crops,” Benke wrote in a statement he shared with OPB.
Benke said the practice is common across the Willamette Valley. He also said the company has stopped unloading debris on the site and has complied with DEQs enforcement notices.
Documents provided to DEQ by a consulting group hired by All-Ways Excavating USA LLC note nearly 300 trucks unloaded debris into the pit from November 2023 until early January.
Courtesy of Scott Chambers
Craig Johnston, an environmental law professor at Lewis and Clark College, said unloading clean fill to level an area in a property can be a common practice. What’s not so common, he said, is the practice of excavating a pit and charging contractors to unload debris into it. DEQ documents provided by All-Ways Excavating show the company was charging contractors between $200 and $300 per load.
“Certainly, for an agency like DEQ, it would give concern that someone is spending a lot of money to prepare their land to receive what they claim to be just ordinary fill material,” Johnston said. “And the fact that they appear to be spending money to do this and they apparently are being paid for this would suggest that the primary motive here is for somebody to get rid of something; not just ordinary farming activity.”
In its notice letter, DEQ gave the landowner three options —to either obtain a solid waste permit, clean up the site or prove the debris is not solid waste regulated by DEQ by the end of June.
Bachman said DEQ is still assessing whether the operation poses any environmental or water quality threats.
“We’re still evaluating the evidence that we’ve collected, much of which has been supplied by the land owner and their consultant, and that’s something that we’ve yet to make a determination on,” Bachman said.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the recipient of a notice letter sent by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. The letter was sent to the owner of the land where debris was unloaded. OPB regrets the error.