BoDean Co. to fight proposed $8.6 million fine for alleged stormwater discharge at Mark West Quarry

A Santa Rosa construction materials supplier faced with a record $8.6 million fine is contesting alleged stormwater discharge violations at its massive rock quarry off Porter Creek Road after efforts to negotiate a settlement in the case failed.

The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board has scheduled a three-day hearing on the matter this fall so the prosecution team can argue its case against BoDean Co.

BoDean plans a robust defense of its environmental practices, which it says rise above industry standards. The defense plans on including a tour of its 120-acre site between Santa Rosa and Calistoga on the hearing’s first day.

Co-owner Dean Soiland said the company had in recent years invested around $4 million in stormwater capture and high-tech treatment systems to handle runoff on the exposed quarry site, where the company mines, cleans, crushes and sorts rock aggregate for use in road construction, among other things.

“We’re very transparent,” Soiland said. “We like people to see the very good work that we’ve done and continue to do. We’re very proud of our sites and our operations.”

The divide between BoDean and the water quality board staff is profound, however.

During an interview last fall, Assistant Executive Officer Claudia Villacorta described a company that failed repeatedly to comply with basic practices required under its permits, as well as heightened monitoring and stormwater capture requirements imposed in the years after violations in the winter of 2015-16 were put on record.

Examples cited in enforcement documents included 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 that is “particularly deleterious to aquatic species.”

The resulting discharges threaten federally protected species of salmon and steelhead that inhabit the Russian River watershed. The watershed includes Mark West Creek, one of five priority streams identified by the state, and Porter Creek, which flows into it.

The Russian River and its tributaries already are listed under the federal Clean Water Act as impaired by excess sediment and high temperatures. Clouding or turbidity in the water can prevent sunlight from reaching aquatic plants, clog fish gills, reduce visibility and make it difficult for fish to find food, mates and protective cover, among other harms.

After several earlier attempts failed to remedy that situation, the water quality board filed a complaint and proposed fine of $4.5 million against BoDean in 2021. It cited in part the discharge of more than 10.5 million gallons of sediment-laden runoff into Porter Creek over 73 days between September 2018 and May 2019, a time that included periods of heavy rainfall that caused flooding in the lower Russian River and elsewhere.

Additional discharges were observed in December 2022 and the following January, when a series of extreme atmospheric rivers again pummeled the region.

On one occasion that December, water board staff detected a 3,152% increase in stream turbidity over upstream levels, indicating the sediment burden was attributable to the quarry, they said.

A few weeks later, with sediment still being discharged, the water board staff learned that a power failure had suspended treatment of captured stormwater at the quarry, with backup generators equipped only to power the site office and materials scales.

“They have requirements … to implement both minimum and advanced BMPs,” or best management practices, designed to prevent erosion and pollution, Villacorta said last fall. “The minimums were mostly absent, and when they were there, were not working or were dysfunctional.”

BoDean representatives say the quarry has in part fallen victim to changing weather patterns. A company statement issued last fall said the quarry’s stormwater management system was designed “to handle a certain size of storm event,” as required by its permit.

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

The company also contends that photographs taken by the water board and used to support alleged violations do not strictly document discharge from the quarry site but from outside of it, as well.

“I just really have a high level of confidence in our company and our team,” Soiland said. “We’re proud of our environmental record and our environmental compliance … I think we’re exemplary in the industry.”

The company had been given until the end of 2023 to negotiate a settlement with the water quality agency. Both parties later said they’d been unable to reach agreement but would not discuss those talks further.

But Soiland said he was disappointed in the outcome. He said his company “is more than willing to entertain a reasonable settlement which recognizes the extraordinary level of effort and investment that BoDean and its employees have made to comply with the permit and to satisfy the Water Board’s many requirements.”

“We’ve approached this from a position of good faith,” Soiland said, “and I think we’ve demonstrated nothing but a willingness to work with the water board and do everything in our power to be good stewards.”

The public hearing is on the calendar for Oct. 2-4 at the regional water board’s offices at 5550 Skylane Blvd., Suite A, in Santa Rosa, where the appointed five-member board will determine BoDean’s level of liability and any fines.

The quasi-judicial hearing will include opening statements, witness testimony and closing arguments. It will be webcast at CalEPA’s live webcasts page.

Interested members of the public also will have an opportunity to speak before the regional board and also may submit written comment before 5 p.m. Aug. 26.

More information is available at waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast/.

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