Quincy company fined for polluting water

SPOKANE — The Jones Produce Dehy Company has been fined $16,000 by the state Department of Ecology for illegally discharging polluted waste water from its Quincy facilities in August.

Mike Jones operates two adjoining facilities in Quincy — one that washes and packs fresh potatoes and one that dehydrates potatoes. The facility's waste water permit allows Jones to use the waste water for irrigation on land eight miles south of town. It is not allowed to be discharged at any other location.

Because pipes from the facilities were not maintained adequately, they became plugged and caused waste water to flow into the city's municipal waste-water and storm-drain systems and onto land east of Jones Produce. The highly concentrated effluent from the potato plants can damage the environment and the city's sewer system which is not designed to handle the extra load.

The waste water in the city's storm drain eventually discharges into a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation ditch located along the West Canal, a primary irrigation canal that is part of the federal Columbia Basin Irrigation Project.

"We understand that plugged lines can occur," said Jim Bellatty, who manages Ecology's water quality system in Spokane. "But the company should have called Ecology and the city of Quincy when the emergency occurred so we could work with them to fix the problem while protecting the city's sewer system and the environment."

Jones may appeal the penalty to Ecology or to the state's Pollution Control Hearings Board within 30 days.

Jones could not be reached for comment at press time.