Medford, Ore. — A Shady Cove couple faces more than $16,000 in civil fines for continuing to operate an illegal dump that includes buried household garbage that could taint area groundwater, wells and a nearby Rogue River tributary, a state agency says.
Ken Williams and Kim Powell have twice been fined for hundreds of cubic yards of accumulated garbage around their Indian Creek Road house that has yet to be cleared since the state Department of Environmental Quality ordered them to do so in January, records show.
DEQ investigators on Nov. 4 found the couple had stored about 250 cubic yards of household garbage as well as discarded appliances, vehicle parts, furniture and tires on the property.
Some time over the ensuing three days, the couple used a backhoe to bury about 128 cubic yards of solid waste, and a DEQ inspection in late December led to the discovery of about 200 yards of waste on the property, the DEQ civil penalty reports.