EPA Enforcement Roundup: Week of 9/9

The EPA Enforcement Roundup gives you insight into how and why US EPA and state partners assess penalties for environmental noncompliance. 

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:

Four manufactured home communities and their management company face over $1M in penalties for alleged permit violations.

Alleged violations are related to discharges from the companies’ wastewater treatment plants into local waterways, including suspended solids, nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, and E. coli, says EPA. Over a five-year period, the companies allegedly exceeded Clean Water Act permit limits a total of 315 times. Those exceedances introduce illegal pollutants into the nearby river and its tributaries which flow into the Chesapeake Bay.

An ammunition manufacturer faces $349,471 in penalties due to alleged Clean Air Act violations.

The manufacturer, located in Anoka, Minnesota, melts and processes lead as part of its process to manufacture ammunition. According to EPA, the facility failed to meet air pollution control equipment requirements and violated the ambient air quality standard for lead.

The company has installed three lead-controlling baghouses with secondary high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration, and will:

• Install scavenger hooding in lead-processing areas to route previously uncaptured emissions to baghouses with secondary HEPA filtration.
• Implement a fugitive dust plan and continue to monitor and investigate lead measured in the ambient air.

An asphalt refinery in New Mexico faces $102,920 in penalties for alleged hazardous waste violations as a large quantity generator.

The refinery was penalized for the seven alleged hazardous waste violations. According to the New Mexico Environment Department, the company stored of hazardous waste for greater than 90 days without a permit, stored hazardous waste in frac-tanks after a split load incident, and failed to:

• Keep satellite containers of hazardous waste closed during accumulation, except when adding or removing waste.
• Operate the Facility to minimize the possibility of fire, explosion, or sudden or non-sudden releases of hazardous waste constituents.
• Conduct weekly inspections of the hazardous waste Central Accumulation Area.
• Label satellite containers of hazardous waste with the words “hazardous waste”.
• Label containers of hazardous waste with an indication of the hazard(s) presented by the waste.

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