City of North Powder and local residents fined by DEQ
By Garrett Christensen on Friday, June 26th, 2026 in Northeastern Oregon News Northeastern Oregon Top Stories
NORTH POWDER – The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality recently issued a list of penalties for May 2026, totaling $540,262. Among them, two local entities in Southern Union County were noted.
North Powder residents Eduardo Bedolla and Maria Bedolla Vazquez were fined $22,552 for waste tire storage issues, while the City of North Powder itself was fined $10,923 for wastewater reporting requirement issues.
A letter sent to North Powder on May 28 by the DEQ (and posted publicly online) reads in part:
“This letter is to inform you that the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has issued you a civil penalty of $10,923 for failing to comply with the monitoring and reporting requirements of the wastewater disposal permit issued to the City for its municipal wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal system.
Your permit requires you to conduct monitoring and report the results to DEQ to ensure that DEQ and the public have the information necessary to determine that you are complying with the pollution limits in your permit and to enable you to take action if your system is not maintained and operated properly to prevent pollution. DEQ penalized the City in 2023 for, among other violations, failing to conduct. required monitoring.”
Similarly, a letter sent to Edaurdo and Maria by the DEQ on May 28 (also posted publicly online) reads in part:
“This letter is to inform you that the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has issued you a civil penalty of $22,552 for operating a waste tire storage site without a permit at 600 Center Street in North Powder.
DEQ issued this penalty because despite issuing you a Warning Letter with Opportunity to Correct in December 2025 and a Pre-Enforcement Notice in April 2026, you have not corrected the violation. DEQ is concerned that you now have an estimated 6,000-8,000 waste tires stored without complying with the protections required by a waste tire storage permit, posing a risk to human health and the environment, including the risk of fire
The full letters for both fines, as well as all recent DEQ fines, can be found at: https://www.oregon.gov/deq/Pages/enforcement-actions.aspx.
