In 2022, Ryan Beckley, president of the Winchester Water Control District (WWCD), owners of the condemned and uninsurable Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River, awarded the summer 2023 dam repair contract to TerraFirma Foundation Systems, a basement and foundation repair company in Portland which he happens to own. This resulted in an infamous and record-breaking fish kill of more than half a million Pacific lamprey and an unprecedented fine of $27.5 million levied against the WWCD by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Oregon Department of Justice.
But Beckley added insult to injury when he installed temporary roadbeds through the dewatered riverbed made out of thousands of used, flattened, vertically stacked heavy truck tires. If he intended to kill salmon, he could hardly have chosen a more effective method.
Tires are considered “deleterious waste material per Condition #9” and are prohibited from use in the Water Quality Certification the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) permit issued to the WWCD.
Each year, tires (which contain hundreds of chemicals) shed 6 million tons of tiny particles of toxic “road dust” worldwide, much of which is washed by rainfall into rivers and winds up in fish.
Although zinc oxide only accounts for 0.7 percent of the weight of a tire, even in trace amounts it’s highly toxic to fish and other aquatic life.
Additionally, tires leach a chemical that, when exposed to air, becomes 6PPD-quinone, a substance lethal to coho salmon.
A 2020 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Science linked Pacific Northwest coho salmon deaths to 6PPD-q. A 2022 study found that two species of trout were also sensitive to the chemical. Another 2022 study that suggested 6PPD-q also harms steelhead trout and Chinook salmon.
It seems particularly egregious to deliberately place thousands of flattened heavy truck tires in the middle of the North Umpqua River, whose free-flowing current the Winchester Dam impedes – a river that many consider the number one steelhead stream in North America – and some say, in the world.
According to DEQ’s October 26, 2023, Notice of Civil Penalty,
“Below the dam, [WWCD] constructed temporary access roads to work area and a temporary work platform, using mats constructed of tires, rather than aggregate and geotextile fabric as was described in the JPA.”
“On August 15, 2023, DEQ notified Respondent [meaning Ryan Beckley] via email that the JPA indicated that the work area downstream of the dam would be constructed of aggregate and that “[t]ires are considered deleterious waste material per Condition #9 of your 401 WQC [Water Quality Certification] and must be removed from areas where they currently are or could enter waters.”
“Respondent did not remove tire mats from the water until September 3, 2023. During removal of the mats, tire pieces broke from the mats and fell into the water. . . During the repair work, Respondent failed to fully dewater what was meant to be an isolation area between a cofferdam and the dam face. As a result, water continually seeped and flowed under the dam and through the in-water work area [and the tire mats].”
Not only did Beckley violate his permit by placing prohibited tire mats lethal to salmon directly in streambed – he waited 19 days before responding to DEQ’s order to remove them. Beckley’s apparent disregard for the tens of millions of dollars that have already been spent restoring habitat in the 160 miles of high quality habitat for spring and fall Chinook, summer and winter steelhead, cutthroat trout, Pacific lamprey, and Southern Oregon coast coho, is concerning. It is as if he really doesn’t care how many fish are killed.
On August 17, 2023, Beckley told the Roseburg News-Review. “There’s never been a [fish] salvage effort anywhere comparable to that whatsoever. . . . I’m not trying to paint a picture that we were callous about it or we disregarded it. . .”
Despite his bravado and propensity for hyperbole, Ryan Beckley remains Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s undisputed fish kill champion of 2023.
On October 26, 2023, DEQ issued a Notice of Civil Penalty and a $106,778 fine against WWCD for “at least ten” pollution violations and violations of their JPA. In addition, ODEQ issued a $27,600 fine to Ryan Beckley, for multiple pollution violations by TerraFirma Foundation Systems during the August and September Winchester Dam repairs:
“DEQ issued this penalty because discharges of uncured concrete can cause rapid increases in the pH level of the surrounding water, which poses a significant risk of harm to aquatic species. Tires leach toxic chemicals, microplastics, and heavy metals that are known to be harmful to aquatic life, particularly salmon.”
The total fine came to $134, 378.
DEQ plainly stated, “The North Umpqua River is a water of the state, pursuant to ORS 468B.005(10). The river is habitat to Endangered Species Act (ESA)-listed salmonid species, as well as other native migratory aquatic species. The river is designated as Essential Salmonid Habitat by the Department of State Lands (DSL) and as Essential Fish Habitat for coho and Chinook salmon by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Larval lamprey (ammocoete) beds are prevalent in the substrate of the river upstream of the dam.”
During the summer of 2023 repairs, WWCD contractors under the supervision of Ryan Beckley, released uncured concrete into the North Umpqua River not once but twice – and failed to self-report as is required.
Additionally, they committed nine other violations that were lethal to the fishery and the water quality. And it’s only going to cost them $78,567. This isn’t much of an incentive for future compliance – Ryan Beckley saved exponentially more money by intentionally violating his permit, than he would have by complying.
DEQ allows repeat offenders like Ryan Beckley to poison the river, kill hundreds of thousands of fish, and contaminate drinking water for a paltry fine of a few thousand dollars that he’ll never have to pay himself – it’s covered by his insurance.
In short, this ineffectual system of law enforcement ensures greater profits to those who violate their permits.
WWCD appealed DEQ’s $134,378 fine (as they always do) and ever willing to accommodate deadbeat dam owners and repeat offenders, on June 27, 2024, DEQ reduced the fine by $55,811.
How does DEQ’s 40% discount to WWCD serve as an incentive against future permit violations? Does this not set a terrible precedent?
Each and every time WWCD attempts to repair the derelict, crumbling, and long-ago condemned Winchester Dam, an unqualified environmental disaster results. If the WWCD were a drunk driver, their license would have been suspended long ago. The dam provides no hydroelectricity, no irrigation, and no flood control. Its sole function is as a private waterski lake for a couple dozen privileged speedboat owners.
During the Winchester Dam repairs in the summer of 2018, DEQ fined WWCD $53,578 for a single permit violation, releasing uncured concrete into the river, 50-feet upstream of the intake for the drinking water for 37,700 county residents. WWCD appealed that fine (as they always do) and DEQ inexplicably and accommodatingly reduced it to $19,517. This set another terrible precedent, making it attractively affordable to poison fish and contaminate drinking water for profit.
According to DEQ’s October 26, 2023, Notice of Civil Penalty, in addition to the tire mat roadbeds previously mentioned, permit violations incurred by WWCD during the summer of 2023 repairs of Winchester Dam include:
• Operating equipment directly on the exposed riverbed without installing temporary aggregate surfaces.
• Contaminating the river with uncured concrete, 50-feet upstream from the drinking water intake for one out of three county residents.
• Operating excavators within the active flowing channel of the river.
• Failing to install a “cofferdam constructed of sandbags in super sacks, will be constructed downstream of the dam across the full length of the river.”
The three-thousand-year-old Torah, the primary source for the Old Testament in the Bible, is emphatic and specific about water quality and the dangers of drinking polluted water. Few offenses were considered as odious as the contamination of public rivers and drinking water sources.
Few things are as vitally important to a community of fish – or people.
