Albany has made good on its threat to take the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to court over the agency's new requirements for city wastewater being discharged into the Willamette River.

The city, represented by Springfield attorney David Jewett, filed petition for judicial review last week in Linn County Circuit Court. The city seeks to have a judge overturn the order or send it back to the DEQ for more research.

Eugene and Springfield have filed similar complaints against the DEQ in Lane County Circuit Court. Jewett and his firm - Thorp, Purdy, Jewett, Urness, Wilkinson PC - is handling those actions as well.

Albany's lawsuit is generally about the Willamette River's temperature, which the DEQ says is too high for salmon. DEQ is requiring the city to limit the amount of heat energy it discharges into the river with its wastewater, but the city says in its complaint that the DEQ's new requirements could cost the city $15 million.

Such expenses would lead to a "severe financial and operational burden," the lawsuit says.

This requirement is part of a new discharge permit, which DEQ issued in September 2006. The city filed a petition in December for the agency to reconsider the requirements, but the agency refused.

According to the city's complaint, the DEQ did not follow state law in coming up with the data to support these new requirements. It accuses the agency of lumping municipal and industrial wastewater plants together, when industrial wastewater is of a higher temperature than municipal. It also alleges the DEQ ignored the effect of dams and reservoirs on the river's overall temperature.

The lawsuit goes so far as to call some of DEQ's actions "arbitrary and capricious."

No court dates have been set on the action.

Democrat-Herald