Published 3:30 pm Friday, May 20, 2022
TILLAMOOK, Ore. — The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has fined a manure digester in Tillamook $20,369 for air quality violations that occurred between Jan. 1, 2019 and Nov. 9, 2021.
DEQ issued the fine April 12 against Farm Power Tillamook LLC, alleging the company failed to consistently operate a combustion flare at its facility on McCormick Loop Drive, allowing methane gas to be released into the atmosphere.
Farm Power operates digesters in western Washington and Oregon, taking cow manure from local dairies and converting it into electricity. Anaerobic digestion works by heating the waste to about 100 degrees, which releases methane. The gas is captured and used to power a generator.
When the generator is down for maintenance or producing more biogas than it can safely process, excess emissions are vented through a combustion flare that burns off harmful air pollutants.
However, DEQ identified 13,402 periods when the Tillamook digester’s flare was not working when it should have been.
Each 15-minute interval added up to an equivalent of 141 days, or 13.5% of the digester’s total operating time.
According to DEQ’s findings, operators disregarded warning signals that indicated the flare was malfunctioning and did not keep records of when the malfunctions occurred or what was done to fix them.
On Feb. 7, 2022, the company sent a letter to DEQ stating it intends to build a shield around the flare to prevent it from failing to light or being blown out by wind, and had retrained operators to respond to text message warnings connected to the flare.
The agency previously fined Farm Power $18,701 for similar issues at another of its Tillamook digesters — this one on Evergreen Drive — in November 2021. Those violations occurred between July 3, 2019 and May 4, 2021, adding up to an equivalent of 87 days when the facility’s combustion flare was not working as permitted.
Farm Power has appealed both fines.
