Mats made of used truck tires placed in dewatered riverbed at Winchester Dam, August 2023.
On Friday, March 6, 2026, Senior Administrative Law Judge Elizabeth Jarry upheld civil penalty fine totaling $77,767 against the Winchester Water Control District (WWCD) for water quality violations committed during the botched August 2023 “repairs” of the infamous Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River.
In her proposed and final order, Judge Jarry found that Ryan Beckley, owner of Terra Firma Foundation Repair, and President of the Board of Directors of the WWCD, owners of the derelict dam, violated multiple conditions of the 401 Water Quality Certification issued by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for the August 2023 so-called “repairs.”
According to Judge Jarry, Beckley and the WWCD were responsible for the work of its contractors and subcontractors, Terra Firma Foundation Repair, and DOWL Engineering.
Condemned in 1976, the 450-foot Winchester Dam, provides no hydroelectricity, no irrigation, and no flood control. Its sole function is as a mile-and-a-half long private waterski lake used exclusively by the WWCD, an association of privileged homeowners who live around the dam, and at the exclusion of the public.
Judge Jarry order states that the violations included:
• Work that was inconsistent with the permitted project description.
• Inadequate erosion and sediment controls.
• Placing mats made of used truck tires in the riverbed (the tires leach 6PPD Quinone, a substance lethal to salmon).
• Spilling green concrete into the North Umpqua fifty feet upstream of the drinking water intake for 37,700 people (because Beckley jerry-rigged retention ponds made of supersacks instead of renting a cement mixer or dump truck).
• Operating heavy machinery in the flowing river channel.
• Failure to fully isolate the in-water work area from the active stream.
Furthermore, Judge Jarry found that Beckley and his subcontractors failed to remove temporary construction materials before the approved in-water work window ended and failed to provide unobstructed fish passage from Sept. 1 through Sept. 5, 2023, which resulted in a record-breaking fish kill of more than 550,000 Pacific lamprey and a $27.6 million lawsuit brought by the Oregon Department of Justice against the WWCD and its subcontractors.
Judge Jarry’s order states “The North Umpqua River is habitat to Endangered Species Act-listed salmonid species and other native migratory aquatic species. The river is designated Essential Salmonid Habitat by the Department of State Lands and as Essential Fish Habitat for Coho and Chinook salmon by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).”
Although Judge Jarry didn’t describe Beckley’s TerraFirma as uncertified to work on dams, her order clearly states that Beckley and his company had no previous experience in this kind of in-water work involved in the project, as Beckley has repeatedly claimed.
Judge Jarry wrote, “In early March 2023, Respondent [Beckley] retained a law firm to provide advice regarding the process of seeking and selecting a general contractor to complete the dam repair project. Mr. Beckley , who is also the owner and operator of TerraFirma, recused himself from the selection process because he planned to submit a bid on behalf of TerraFirma [a company he owns].”
According to Judge Jarry, Beckley’s TerraFirma, the contractor hired for the repair work, listed experience involving foundation repair, waterproofing, wall stabilization and concrete work. But she found Terra Firma’s disclosed project history included just one solitary in-water project and that few, if any, of Beckley’s employees on site during the 2023 repair had any in-water work experience.
The deadbeat Winchester Dam remains the most dangerous in illegal dam in Oregon.
The judge’s order states “The Winchester Dam is categorized as a High Hazard dam by OWRD [Oregon Water Resources Department], which ‘means that OWRD expects loss of human life to occur if the dam were to fail.'”
Judge Jarry noted that Beckley was a repeat offender, stating “In 2018, Respondent hired Basco Logging to perform repairs to the dam. Basco Logging was owned by a member of the Board. In his capacity as Board President, Mr. Beckley oversaw dam repair work performed by Basco Logging. Basco Logging was subject to a DEQ enforcement action due to discharging concrete into the river during the repair project… Respondent paid part of the civil penalty assessed by DEQ against Basco Logging.”
“Based on the 2018 repair project,”Judge Jarry wrote, “Respondent anticipated incurring fines for the 2023 project… In 2021, Respondent had approved up to $3,000,000 in bonds to pay for the repair project and to ‘pay fines, penalties, judgements, legal fees and other costs related to the Winchester Dam,’ among other things.”
But the judge’s order states that Beckley apparently did not learn from his mistakes, repeating the same violation in August 2023—by failing to use a dump truck or cement mixer to contain green cement that wound up spilling into the river, fifty feet upstream of the drinking water intake for 37,700 people.
In 2024, the Oregon Department of Water Quality referred this matter to the Oregon Office of Administrative Hearings. Judge Jarry’s order notes the WWCD matter was consolidated for hearing purposes with a related case involving TerraFirma.
The violations against Beckley and WWCD were upheld across several categories tied to permit compliance, including project consistency, erosion and sediment control, concrete, tire mats, in-channel equipment operation, fish passage and work area isolation.
According to the order, payment is due within 10 days after the order becomes final.
It remains to be seen if Ryan Beckley and WWCD attorney Dominic Carollo will pay the $77,767 fine or sue the Oregon Department of Water Quality.
