BoDean Co. facing record $8.6 million fine for stormwater management, discharge violations at Mark West Quarry

A Santa Rosa construction materials supplier with operations at several sites around Sonoma County is facing a record $8.6 million fine for alleged management failures that allowed sediment and fine silt from its Mark West Quarry to flow into Porter Creek during recent rainy seasons.

The proposed fine against The BoDean Co. by the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board reflects what they say are repeated violations of basic permitting standards and requirements of the federal Clean Water Act since the winter of 2018 at the company’s aggregate rock quarry off Porter Creek Road.

Examples include failure to sufficiently maintain and monitor stormwater detention ponds or to cover large, exposed stockpiles of “cake,” a very fine material produced during crushing and washing of rock and which is “particularly deleterious to aquatic species,” according to enforcement documents filed last month.

As a result, sediment-filled stormwater washed off the 120-acre quarry site and into the salmon-bearing creek on numerous occasions, posing a risk of suffocation and other harm to federally listed fish and other aquatic creatures.

An estimated 10,519,608 gallons of “sediment-laden” stormwater was discharged over 73 days from October 2018 to 2019, for instance, agency staff reported.

‘No cleanup effort’

More recently, the stormwater coming off the site raised stream turbidity, or cloudiness, by more than 3,000%, according to agency staff.

That was last December.

Once sediment was discharged, enforcement staff said, there was little to no cleanup effort.

“They have requirements … to implement both minimum and advanced BMPs,” or best management practices, designed to prevent erosion and pollution, the board’s Assistant Executive Officer Claudia Villacorta said. “The minimums were mostly absent, and when they were there, were not working or were dysfunctional.”

BoDean disputes many of the allegations, and says there are discrepancies in how the water quality staff has interpreted permit requirements, among other issues.

“We are operating at a level well above what is typical for a similar operation, but for reasons that are not clear to us, the water board still considers us to be in violation,” the company said in a statement.

The newest action was made public in a formal complaint and 85-page attachment spelling out specific occasions and ways in which material management, erosion control measures and stormwater capture systems at the site were inadequate to prevent rain from washing dust and particles into the creek.

Porter Creek, which flows into Mark West Creek and then into the Laguna de Santa Rosa and the Russian River, is part of watershed already identified as impaired under the Clean Water Act because of a high sediment burden and other factors that threaten wildlife and their habitat.

Once sediment and other solids are deposited in the creek, they can be mobilized and moved downstream at any time — a particular hazard for Mark West Creek, one of five priority streams identified by the state because of its occupancy by listed coho and chinook salmon species, and steelhead trout.

Repeated warnings

But despite repeated inspections and warnings from the water board staff over the ensuing months and years — and what BoDean co-owner Dean Soiland says has been about $4 million invested in new stormwater capture and treatment facilities — inadequate “housekeeping” continued to lead to violations, said Villacorta, part of the water quality board’s prosecution team.

Stormwater discharge violations, among seven violations cited, carry a potential fine of $10,000 per day, plus up to $10 per gallon, though the proposed fine is far lower than the maximum allowable.

Still, for Soiland and his staff, the new complaint and related public attention pose something of a crisis, particularly given what they say is a seven-day-a-week commitment to monitoring and testing stormwater at specified locations and events they say are not permit violations but the result of different interpretations of “adequate” or circumstances that interfered with established practices.

Once featured in a video by the Santa Rosa-based Climate Center for its conversion of the Mark West Quarry to 100% solar power and proud of its installation of a sophisticated stormwater treatment system, recycling of treated water and reuse of old concrete through a facility in Windsor, Soiland said the water agency’s documents do not reflect his company culture.

He also said they fail to reflect the urgency with which his company sought to rectify deficiencies at Mark West Quarry cited in a May 2019 Notice of Violation and its earnest efforts to respond to each issue raised, including its installation of advanced stormwater treatment equipment put into service in January 2020.

The system was designed “to handle a certain size of storm event,” as required by its permit, the company said in a statement.

“Last season, several storms were larger than those the system was designed to handle,” the statement read. “In these situations, water could have left the site without being captured, but that would not have been a violation.”

“When you read the complaint or even a lot of newspaper articles,” Soiland said in an interview, they depict “a company that’s giving the water board the middle finger, and that’s not us.”

“I think we set a high standard for quality in the industry and operational excellence,” he said.

Prior issues

But this is not the first time BoDean’s operations have been called into question.

The water quality board issued its first Notice of Violation for the Mark West Quarry in 2016, alerting the company to “the need for them to manage stormwater more effectively within the site,” Villacorta said.

The water board also has documented violations involving stormwater discharge and other issues at both the company’s Blue Rock Quarry in Forestville and at its hot asphalt plant near downtown Santa Rosa, where aggregate mined from the Mark West Quarry is turned into paving material.

A cease-and-desist order was issued in 2021 demanding improved control, monitoring and sampling related to stormwater linked to the 6-acre batch plant on Maxwell Drive after three notices of violation between 2020 and earlier in 2021.

This February, BoDean was informed it was in violation of that order for failure to meet enhanced stormwater sampling and reporting requirements.

BoDean also fended off a federal Clean Water Act suit from California River Watch in 2021 over water quality problems at all three sites, based largely on water board data and reports. The parties settled five months later for $57,500, without any admission of liability by BoDean.

CaliforniaRiverWatchBoDeanConsentDecree.pdf

Sonoma County issued its own Notice of Correction addressing stormwater management deficiencies and sediment runoff at the Mark West Quarry in 2019 — before improvements were made.

Site appeared pristine

The Mark West Quarry rises above Porter Creek Road, east of Santa Rosa and just west of Calistoga and Petrified Forest roads, as a giant patch of terraced bare earth as if someone took an irregular and jagged gouge out of the steep hillside.

Winding dirt and gravel roads circle the property, allowing crews to sort and haul different sizes of rock aggregate in the lower area, where consumers and contractors can purchase materials for building and landscaping work. Heavy trucks and other equipment also need to reach the quarry benches, where the earth is blasted to loosen the rock, and the top of the site, where piles of clay and sediment settled from stormwater are used to reclaim and replant the hillside.

On a visit last week, in sunny dry weather, the site looked pristine and litter free, with little dust and some small areas of water that drained from the aggregate washing equipment.

Soiland and his crew pointed out stormwater capture boxes and settling ponds, as well as several series of blue tanks used to filter and remove solids from stormwater before it is either discharged or used for dust control. The contents in the tank are automatically monitored for clarity.

The company also just got permission from the county to greatly expand a key settling pond, which will be done by winter and able to retain substantially more stormwater, Soiland said.

He said the quarry, which dates to 1910, was a longtime source of rock before that. Boulders rolled down the hillside to the road, where citizens would come to break up and take what they needed. BoDean took it over in 1989.

Soiland acknowledged the steep terrain and topography made it “very challenging” to keep everything contained during heavy rains.

But he said he remained confused about the regulatory agency’s handling of the situation, given what had been “good faith” efforts to resolve outstanding issues after an initial round of enforcement orders and an administrative liability complaint in September 2021, citing the unauthorized stormwater discharges in the 2018-19 period and a proposed fine of $4.5 million.

The newer, Sept. 14 administrative complaint is an amended version of the earlier one. Both times BoDean waived its right to a hearing to pursue a settlement through negotiations.

The parties had reached an agreement in principle on the original complaint when enforcement staff discovered ongoing problems at the Mark West Quarry and withdrew from settlement discussions to assess the new violations.

Among the reasons, according to water board staff, were BoDean’s failure to meet enhanced monitoring, sampling and stormwater release reporting requirements imposed when trouble was first discovered and the fact that basic standards were unmet even in the face of millions of dollars in liability. On at least one occasion, turbid stormwater bypassed containment systems altogether and flowed down the quarry’s steep driveway.

Record fine

The new fine is a record high for the North Coast region, which runs from Santa Rosa to the Oregon border, extending east most of the way to Nevada.

It is higher even than the $6.4 million fine issued in December 2020 against Sonoma Luxury Resort and developer Robert Green for dozens of environmental violations documented during construction of Montage Healdsburg.

The water quality staff has said negotiations must produce a settlement in principle by the end of the year or the case will proceed to a contested hearing before the appointed members of the regional water board next spring.

Any negotiated settlement also is subject to board approval.

Meanwhile, the rainy season is coming.

“I’m hoping that this proposed fine is going to serve as a wake-up call to the BoDean Company and will serve as a deterrent to future violations,” Villacorta said.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan (she/her) at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.