Unexpected heavy rain caused water containment measures to fail during the City of Eugene’s Amazon Creek restoration project.
As a result of the August 2024 breach, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality recently issued the city a $23,400 fine. The violations include storing an excavator in an active waterway and failing to control sediment.
City of Eugene Public Works spokesperson Marion Suitor told KLCC the city will pay the fine, but that workers made their best efforts to meet the conditions of the permit.
“We followed what the plan was for doing all of the water management,” Suitor said. “But we ended up having two significant rain events about two weeks apart. And during those two rain events, the water management wasn't sufficient, basically.”
The DEQ’s notice of civil penalty states that a bypass pipe at the project site failed. The pipe was intended to separate the work area from the diverted creek, and the failure caused the work area to be flooded.
Suitor said city officials thought about appealing the fine, but ultimately agreed that the DEQ was correct that there had been a problem.
The Amazon Restoration project was completed this past spring.
