Cleaner Air Oregon is a health-based permitting program that regulates emissions of toxic air contaminants from facilities based on risk to nearby communities. CAO requires facilities to report toxic air contaminant emissions, assess potential health risks to people nearby and reduce toxic air contaminant risk if it exceeds legal limits.
As part of the Cleaner Air Oregon process, each facility has a dedicated web page to provide communities access to facility information and updates on where it is involved in the process.
- Each step of the CAO risk assessment process has a section that includes DEQ's communications and deliverables from the facility.
- The graphic below shows where a facility is in the Cleaner Air Oregon Process.
For additional information and history of the program, visit the Cleaner Air Oregon website.
The Emissions Inventory provides information on all the Toxic Air Contaminant emissions from a facility, and includes information on a facility's operations and activities, as well as fuel and material usage rates. This is often the longest step in the CAO risk assessment process as DEQ needs to verify that all activities have been accounted for, and that the most representative emissions data available are used. In some cases, DEQ will require a facility to perform source testing at this stage if insufficient data is available to estimate emissions. For an introduction to emissions inventories and why they matter, please see EPA's Fact Sheet
Feb. 28, 2025: Facility Called In to Cleaner Air Oregon
About The Facility
Freres Lumber Co. Inc., or Freres, operates a wood product manufacturing complex in Lyon, Oregon consisting of two green veneer manufacturing plants, a stud mill, two steam and natural gas heated veneer dryers, a propane fired backup boiler, and a large Wellons hog fuel boiler with cogeneration of electricity. The facility has operated in various configurations since at least 1978.