Posted April 13, 2015
An environmental group is threatening to sue Bartels Packing, a Lane County slaughterhouse and meat packaging firm, for multiple violations of the federal Clean Water Act, according to a Register Guard article available here. The Eugene Weekly also published an article available hereand Corvallis Gazette-Times here.
Portland-based Willamette Riverkeeper says it sent the lawsuit warning notice to Bartels Packing.
The notice lists four violations documented by the state Department of Environmental Quality from 2010 to 2014. Each claims that wastewater or blood waste entered waterways near Fern Ridge Lake. The lake discharges into the Willamette River.
According to a European Commission survey of wastes spread on land, blood applied to land can improve levels of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. But if the percentage of blood in the wastewater is too high, then those nutrients in excess or in waterways can affect the water and fish. The survey says if the blood waste is not incorporated into the land as soon as possible, it can lead to nuisance odors, according to Eugene Weekly.
Kandi Bartels, executive vice president of Bartels, said the company will address the notice with Willamette Riverkeeper, according to Register Guard.
“They’ll learn the truth and hopefully will understand where we’re coming from,” she said.
But Bartels also said the notice is the latest in a “stampede” of what she later called “character assassinations” against the company. “We take no malice against them, but we have a business to run,” Bartels said. “We take these issues seriously.”
Bartels sells meat as Bartels Farms. It is one of only two U.S. Department of Agriculture-­inspected slaughterhouses in Lane County. The other is Mohawk Valley Meats in Springfield.
Riverkeeper says in its letter that it will file suit in 60 days unless Bartels addresses the CWA violations, seek injunctive relief (a court order to stop activities) and “$37,500 in civil penalties for each day of violation,” according to Eugene Weekly.
For more information on the Clean Water Act, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
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