Cannon Beach officials deny charges in wastewater lawsuit
Published 3:58 pm Friday, March 21, 2025
- A view of Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, one of Oregon's most popular beaches. State regulators have found high levels of fecal bacteria at the beach are of human origin, prompting a lawsuit.
The city of Cannon Beach is denying allegations of violating the federal Clean Water Act after a lawsuit filed by the Northwest Environmental Defense Center claimed that the city is to blame for fecal bacteria in local waterways.
Filed on March 10, the lawsuit cites state monitoring that has led to regular warnings of contamination near Haystack Rock and at the south end of Cannon Beach. It zeroes in on the Gower Street and Tolovana Outfalls, where the city discharges wastewater.
In a statement sent to local businesses, City Manager Bruce St. Denis said that the city had been investigating sources of bacteria in stormwater for over a decade, including intermittent discharges from Gower Street and Tolovana Outfalls.
“There has been no evidence that the bacteria come from the city’s wastewater systems or any other city operations,” Denis wrote in the release.
For several years, the city has been conducting its own weekly stormwater tests alongside tests conducted by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and has conducted smoke tests throughout the city to identify potential cross-connections between the stormwater and sanitary systems.
A spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality said the organization is planning to meet with the city and the Oregon Health Authority next month to discuss the 2022 Cannon Beach Microbial Source Tracking Report, published in September 2024, and the beach monitoring program.
Denis said video cameras had been run through the sanitary sewer lines to find potential leaks, and that visual inspections are done regularly at the outfalls to determine if human fecal matter is being discharged.
The city said none of these tests has shown any sanitary sewer discharges coming through storm sewers.
“The city has done everything in its power to pinpoint a source of the bacteria,” Public Works director Karen La Bonte is quoted in the release as saying. “The problem is not what (the Northwest Environmental Defense Center) is claiming.”
City staff declined to comment further, and are reviewing the case with legal counsel.
