<B>Oregon DEQ to Absorb Permitting Cost Overruns for Mill</B>

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality will absorb cost overruns it faces in renewing a wastewater permit for an Oregon City paper mill that wants to avoid a lawsuit, reported The Oregonian.

Blue Heron Paper Co. and the mill's former owner, Smurfit Newsprint Corp., paid the DEQ $10,800 to renew the mill's expired permit two months ahead of schedule. A 1997 law allows pollution sources to pay the state to speed the process.

Mill owners hoped that a renewed permit would shield it from a lawsuit that the Northwest Environmental Defense Center says it intends to file. The suit would allege that the mill's warm wastewater violated the Clean Water Act and is subject to millions in fines.

The DEQ spent more than $21,000 processing the permit, which is out for public review The proposed permit limits the mill's discharges to 12.5 million gallons daily and its temperature to 92 degrees in summer and 86 degrees during spring salmon migration. River-protection advocates said the limits should be much cooler to protect salmon.

DEQ officials said they probably won't bill Blue Heron for the permit's mounting costs because they spent much of the time debating statewide guidelines for regulating warm industrial wastewater.

"That development of internal guidance will influence everybody's standard, not just (Blue Heron's)," said Bob Baumgartner, water-quality manager in the DEQ's Northwest Region. The DEQ will cover the additional costs with permit fees and taxpayer revenue.