“There were some very clear concerns stated in very emotional terms,” said Molalla resident Dave Vanasen, who was joined at the meeting by about 20 other concerned residents.

Area residents have been complaining for more than a decade about particulate matter from Scotts polluting the air and causing health issues and property damage.

Scotts Hyponex was invited to send a spokesperson to the work session, but did not attend.

DEQ has fined Scotts a civil penalty of $1,312.50 and ordered that the company take actions to remedy current air quality violations, but the air quality problems have not yet been remedied.

“They’ve made some changes. They’ve done just a few minor things that vaguely satisfied our requirements,” said DEQ natural resource specialist Sandi Smith, the inspector in charge of the Molalla Scotts case. “They’ve done just a few things, but not everything and what they have done has not been done well.”

Scotts has appealed DEQ’s findings and denied all violations, Smith said.

“They’ve played this game before and they’ll make it last as long as they can,” Smith said. “It could take a year to go through the appeal process. They can take this all the way up to the federal level and drag it out and continue doing business all this time.”

Scotts’ lawyers will have an informal meeting with the DEQ’s legal department on July 30.

Smith was joined by Nina DeConcini, DEQ’s northwest region division administrator, for last week’s work session in Molalla.

“I was delighted to see the council had a work session — they care enough to discuss this,” DeConcini said. “It was clear to me that they want to work toward a solution here.”

She has also contacted county code enforcement officials to see if they could join forces with the city of Molalla and DEQ to find a solution to the air quality issues.

“We are committed to remaining vigilant on documenting violations and at least keeping the pressure on where we can,” DeConcini said.

Each day that Scott’s continues to neglect acting on DEQ requirements is an additional violation, Smith said.

Although the legal process could hold up DEQ enforcement against Scotts, the city can still work toward a solution.

Dave Vanasen also attended Molalla City Council’s meeting last Wednesday and urged them to send a letter to the Division of State Lands, which the council agreed to do.

The letter will request that the Division of State Lands investigate water contamination from runoff at Scotts and a possible wetlands violation, city manager John Atkins said.

At a prior council meeting, Vanasen submitted a petition signed by about 20 Twin Firs Mobile Court residents requesting that the council enact a tariff on truckloads of Scotts material transported within the city. Vanasen proposed that the funds generated from the tariff be used to repair damage to residents’ homes.

Atkins said interstate commerce and the imposition of tariffs cannot be imposed on a city or state level, but must be enacted by the federal government.

“We don’t have any authority to levy tariffs on materials entering or leaving the city, but it was a creative idea and something we looked into,” Atkins said.

He also said that even if a tariff could be enacted, it could not specifically target Scotts and would likely impact many other local businesses.

Atkins said an area where the city can take immediate action is in making a change to the current pollution ordinance.

He plans to propose at the next city council meeting that dust be added to the ordinance.

“I’m surprised and somewhat regretful that when we redid the nuisance ordinance that dust was not mentioned as a nuisance,” Atkins said. “I don’t know why we failed to include it.”

Adding dust as a violation would enable the city to require that Scotts take steps to control the dust generated by trucks going to and from the packaging plant, Atkins said.

Atkins said Scotts currently uses a watering truck to help minimize its parking lot dust, but that mud still gets tracked back onto the highway, creating dust once it dries out.

“There’s an ongoing problem there that Scotts has done something about, but it’s not a satisfactory solution,” Atkins said.

While small particulate matter that cannot be seen in the air but builds up slowly over time must be proven by outside experts, Atkins said, a dust violation is more obvious and can be cited by the city’s code enforcement officer.

He said the city is relying on DEQ for the main air quality enforcement.