Roseburg Forest Products Mill Manager Fired, Plant Fined $130K For Pollution

Roseburg Forest Products’ Missoula mill has paid $130,925 in fines after self-reporting several air quality violations dating back to 2006.

The Montana Department of Environmental Quality said Friday it settled an enforcement action against the particleboard plant and accepted Roseburg’s request to apply the fine to a wood stove replacement program in Seeley Lake.

“In February 2011, Roseburg submitted revised reports covering the previous five years,” DEQ environmental science specialist Karen Wilson said Friday. “They had said they’d done these activities the way they should have, but at some point they did a review and realized they didn’t have the information to substantiate that. The plant manager (responsible) was released.”

Officials at Roseburg’s corporate office in Roseburg, Ore., said no one was available to comment about the settlement on Friday.

The six violations of the plant’s Montana Operating Permit included one incident in which sanding dust was stored outside in direct violation of the permit’s requirements. Sanding dust is the residue left after the Roseburg plant smoothes and shapes particleboard sheets, which are made of sawdust and resin.

From The Missoulian: missoulian.com.

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