[A]n industrial coating manufacturer has reached a settlement with the EPA for improperly storing hazardous waste at a Rutland County plant.
Ohio-based Ellison Surface Technologies will pay the EPA $77,903 to settle claims that it violated federal and state hazardous waste laws at its North Clarendon facility, the EPA announced Friday. The company, which makes coatings for the aerospace industry and other sectors, also had to take steps to properly store and dispose of waste under a settlement reached this July and announced last week.
Alexandra Dunn, EPA regional administrator, characterized the settlement Friday as “important” because of the need to ensure that businesses comply “with laws that keep facilities safe for workers and the community.”
The company did not admit or deny liability in the settlement.
After EPA inspectors visited the facility in July of 2016, the EPA sent the company a notice outlining sixteen potential violations of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and state hazardous waste rules. The federal agency found the company to be in “significant non-compliance with regulations,” said Dave Deegan, an EPA spokesperson.
Both the EPA and the state Department of Environmental Conservation periodically inspect businesses in Vermont that generate hazardous waste, said Marc Roy, section chief for the DEC’s hazardous waste division. Ellison’s North Clarendon facility was on the state’s list of sites to inspect in 2016, so the state recommended that the EPA inspect it as part of their annual inspection that year, said Roy. Hazardous waste at the facility includes hydrochloric and nitric acid as well as “universal waste,” such as batteries and lightbulbs, according to the settlement agreement.
One of the alleged violations was that hazardous waste was stored on-site for more than 180 days without a license. Molydag, one byproduct of Ellison’s coating process, had been stored for 879 days at the time of inspection, said Deegan.
The EPA also alleged that employees had improperly labelled hazardous waste, failed to perform required daily hazardous waste inspections and stored “incompatible wastes” near to one another, among a series of charges. Roy said that storing certain kinds of chemicals together, like an acid with a base, constitutes a “Chemistry 101 no-no.”
“You put those together and it could cause a big problem, either by releasing heat or releasing toxic fumes,” he said.
Improperly labeled hazardous waste containers constitute a potential danger if anyone moved the drums and did not know what the contents were, said Roy.
“If there was a fire in that hazardous waste storage area, and there’s no record as to what is in there — there’s no markings or labels on the container — that could obviously be a big problem for first responders,” he added.
Michael Benza, general counsel for Ellison Surface Technologies, said in a statement that the company is “committed to environmental stewardship” and has “diligently and in good faith worked to ensure compliance with the laws and regulations of the land.”
He said that in the settlement agreement, the EPA found violations but “did not allege that Ellison caused any harm to people or the environment.”
“Ellison views this settlement as an opportunity to renew with vigor our goal to serve as a positive example in the community,” Benza added.
Under the terms of the settlement, the company had to certify compliance with environmental laws, which included conducting an inventory of all hazardous waste on-site, shipping off hazardous waste stored for more than 180 days and documenting daily inspections.
The company also received a notice of violation — this time, from the state — for its other Vermont plant in Rutland after a DEC inspection this August, said DEC’s Roy. Violations included having four containers open that should have been closed and not labelling the short term waste storage area.
Because the violations at the Rutland plant were not egregious and were fixed swiftly by the company, the DEC did not impose fines, said Roy.
