EPA Enforcement Roundup: Week of 7/10

US businesses are subject to complex, overlapping environmental regulations related to air emissions, discharges to water, hazardous waste management and disposal, oil spills, chemical management, and more. Failure to comply with all applicable US EPA requirements can result in future liability and civil penalties as high as $100,000+ per day, per violation.

The EPA Enforcement Roundup highlights enforcement actions that offer insight into how and why US EPA and state partners assess penalties for noncompliance for environmental regulations.

All violations or claims discussed below are alleged only unless we say otherwise, and we withhold the names of organizations and individuals to protect their privacy.

Your EPA Enforcement Roundup for this week:

An industrial gas company agrees to a $1.9M penalty for alleged Clean Water Act permit violations.

In addition to paying the penalty to be split between the United States and the State of West Virginia, the company agreed to construct a new treatment system and to conduct enhanced stormwater discharge inspections to ensure compliance with Clean Water Act (CWA) National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit rules and West Virginia state laws.

According to EPA, the company allegedly exceeded their permit’s limits for copper, aluminum, residual chlorine, phenolics, and iron.

Alleged Washington State dangerous waste violations cost this hazardous waste transportation company $37,000.

The company was contracted to manage, transport, and dispose of another business’s dangerous waste. The Washington State Department of Ecology (WA DOE) alleges that the company knowingly left a container leaking corrosive liquid unsupervised overnight and transported the leaking container to another facility in Tacoma, Washington the next day.

Workers at the Tacoma facility reported the leak to WA DOE.

An energy equipment distributor and servicer faces a $20,000 penalty for alleged hazardous waste violations in Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) alleges that this company transported and stored more than 100kg of waste oil without a hazardous waste transporter’s license or hazardous waste storage license.

MassDEP also alleges that the company did not use a hazardous waste manifest for these shipments, and that the aboveground tank where the waste oil was stored was not labelled or clearly delineated and did not have an emergency contact list posted.

Workers responsible for waste oil management did not have adequate training, and finally, hazardous waste recycling records for the facility’s waste oil burner were requested and none were available for agency personnel to review.

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Tags: Clean Water Act, environmental enforcement, EPA Enforcement Roundup, RCRA