Over a year after the Environmental Protection Agency sought permission to designate longtime Eugene wood processing plant J.H. Baxter as a Superfund site, the agency has received funding to move forward according to federal court documents.
The company — which was shuttered in January 2022 — was found to have illegally disposed of toxic wastewater from wood-preserving processes by evaporating it into the air, an operation that federal prosecutors alleged contaminated much of the Bethel neighborhood in west Eugene. Prosecutors later said J.H. Baxter vented more than 1.7 million gallons of chemical-laced wastewater between 2019 and 2021.
Bethel area residents had been complaining for years about bad odors and pollution, with some reporting alleged health impacts from the contamination. Environmental groups and state officials had also called for stronger action as testing revealed widespread contamination.
Earlier this year, several residents had their lawns replaced after toxic chemicals linked to the plant — including dioxins — were found in soil samples taken from yards across the area.
The Superfund designation unlocks millions in federal resources to help with the plant’s cleanup. It also places the facility on the EPA’s list of the nation’s most contaminated properties, which require continual monitoring and eventual remediation. The designation also gives the federal government authority to hold J.H. Baxter financially responsible for the cleanup.
In January, the company’s president, Georgia Baxter-Krause, pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act and making false statements to federal officials, among other environmental violations. In April, the company was fined $1 million, and Baxter-Krause was personally fined another $500,000 and sentenced to 90 days in jail, which she has yet to serve.
“The defendant companies boiled hazardous waste into our community’s air instead of properly dealing with it, and Georgia Baxter-Krause lied when confronted about it,” Nathan J. Lichvarcik, chief of the Eugene and Medford branches of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon, said in a press release following her sentencing.
The EPA is now expected to begin detailed site investigations and develop a remediation plan — a process that could take several years.
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