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Landowners Charged for Burning Hazardous Material in Oregon

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality DEQ has charged two residents and a well known construction company more than $55,000 as fine. The reason for levying this hefty fine on Keith Smith and Brett Dresen as explained by DEQ spokesman is alleged accumulation of asbestos containing material and openly burning the hazardous material at their Carpenterville Road properties. They have been fined a sum of $22,000 each.

Apart form this; DEQ has also fined a construction company Bruce Brothers Inc. with the sum of $9,300 for allegedly demolishing a building whose floors tiles contained asbestos that ended up at Smith’s and Dresen’s properties.

While all the three accused have appealed against the civil fines, the Bruce Brothers officials deny any wrongdoing. However, according to the DEQ, all three of them exposed people to a serious health concern and are party to a serious crime. Asbestos dust is particularly known to cause mesothelioma cancer, a deadly disease and other fatal diseases like asbestosis and lung scarring.

DEQ also states that Smith delivered some of the asbestos material for Dresen, a neighbor. Dresen was fine for a fire in July 11, 2006 when he purportedly burned asphalt roofing, siding, appliances, demolition debris and garbage that is very hazardous to human health. Also, during the same August inspection, some more of the Wharf Street Building debris was found on Dresen’s property. He was again fined for Feb. 9, 2007 incident for allegedly burned more of these prohibited materials including vinyl flooring, electric wiring and asphalt roofing. Dresen removed some of the material from the site but not all. DEQ officials say that they warned both men in writing about their violations but did not get a response.

According to Smith, he was not aware that he had to contact DEQ after Bruce Brothers hired a licensed contractor to clean the asbestos on his and Dresen’s property. Also, officials of Bruce Brothers deny all these charges saying there was no asbestos in the Wharf Street Building they demolished.

According to various witnesses and officials, all three of the accused were warned several times of the wrongdoing but they did not pay any heed and kept on handling asbestos products that are very dangerous for people in the vicinity. While on the other hand, the accused deny these charges saying they did not do anything that could be considered criminal.

DEQ spokesman has said that the appeal process will begin with an informal hearing where the defenders will be given a chance to provide new evidence showing their innocence or what they did to fix the problem. This can result in the reduction or the withdrawal of the penalty fee.

If both DEQ and the defendants are unable to come to terms with each other, the case might go to an administrative law judge and face formal hearing at Environmental Quality Commission or more, Oregon Court of Appeals, if things still remain undecided.

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