Clean Water Act (CWA) - Ivory Homes Ltd.
Industry: Construction/land development
Violations: Ineffective storm water control measures
Civil Penalty: $250,000
Required Actions
- Establish a company compliance manager
- Designate compliance managers on site
- Individual prevention plans
- Documentation
- Quarterly inspections of sites
- Bi-annual compliance reports
Clean Air Act - Costco
Industry: Retail
Violations: Failure to properly perform leak detection monitoring and record keeping at 247 stores
Civil Penalty: $335,000
Estimated cost: $2 million
Required Actions
- Improve leak detection to industry best practices
- Improve repair techniques to industry best practices
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, Superfund) - AVX
Industry: Unclear, but appears manufacturing
Violations: None
Penalty: $366 million for the remediation of the affected site
Required Actions
- No additional actions were required
Municipal Sewage - City of Lima, Ohio
Act: CWA
Violations: violated terms of NPDES permit into local watershed
Penalties: $49,000 civil; $218,400 - River Revitalization project
Estimated Cost: $147 million
Required Actions
- Significant upgrades to infrastructure to increase capacity
- Separation of systems to reduce flow levels
- Construction of additional storage points
- Upgrade pumping stations
- Construct additional relief sewers
Petroleum - Big West Oil
Act: CAA
Violations: Violated emissions requirements for four separate sources
Penalties: $175,000 civil; $235,000 Hydrofluoric Acid detection system
No estimated cost
Required Actions
- Install and operate a Continuous Opacity Monitoring System
- Comply with emissions limits
- Install low NOx burners
- Eliminate burning fuel oil
- Conduct training on Leak detection and repair (LDAR) for personnel
- Require LDAR compliance audits
- Adopt stricter leak definitions and procedures
Energy - Consumers Energy
Act: CAA
Violations: Opacity violations, projects that triggered the prevention of significant deterioration applicability, failure to submit all applicable requirements to consumers, and new source performance standards
Civil penalty: $2.75 million
Supplemental Projects:
- $500,000 to the National Parks Service
- Transition of fleet vehicles to alternative fuel vehicles (up to $3 million)
- Renewable Energy: wind, solar, or anaerobic digestion (up to $4 million)
- Replacement/retrofit of wood burning appliances (between $1 - $2 million)
- Land acquisition, donation, and restoration (up to $2 million
Minimum cost of $7.7 million
Required Actions
- Retirements of designated operating units
- Installation of technologies to reduce NOx and SO2 emissions levels
- Compliance with limitation for NOx and SO2 emissions
- Install and operate or purchase 400 MW of wind generated power
Estimated cost: $1 billion
Construction: Multiple violators
Act: Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting Standards (RRP)
Additional violations under TSCA
Penalties were limited to civil in varying amounts based upon the number of violations.
Common Violations: Failure to
- Provide adequate information regarding lead hazards
- Maintain/produce records of distribution of information
- Obtain Firm Certification
- Obtain/ensure the certification of renovators
- Establish, maintain, or produce records pertinent to RRP
- Comply with work practice standards
Chemical Manufacturing - DuPont
Act: Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)
Circumstances: a licensed DuPont product was confirmed as causing damage and death to certain coniferous trees
Violations
- distribution and sale if Imprelis without proper labeling regarding directions for use and warning/cautionary statements for the protection of non-target plants
- Failure to timely submit trial studies regarding the adverse effects of Imprelis
Civil penalty: $1.853 million
Automotive - Hyundai & Kia
Act: CAA
Violations: Reporting of inaccurate measurements to EPA testing
Required actions
- Forfeiture of Greenhouse gas emissions credits (estimated value $200 million)
- reorganize their certification group, revise test protocols, improve management of test data, and enhance employee training
- Form a new audit team, independent of the original, to regularly audit vehicles to ensure accurate reporting
Estimated costs: $50 million
Construction: Multiple violators
Act: Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting Standards (RRP)
Additional violations under TSCA
Penalties were limited to civil in varying amounts based upon the number of violations.
Common Violations: Failure to
- Provide adequate information regarding lead hazards
- Maintain/produce records of distribution of information
- Obtain Firm Certification
- Obtain/ensure the certification of renovators
- Establish, maintain, or produce records pertinent to RRP
- Comply with work practice standards
Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) - Titanium Metals Corporation (TIMET)
Industry: Manufacturing
Violations: RCRA - unauthorized manufacture and illegal disposal of PCBs
Violations: TSCA - Improper treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous wastes and without a permit
Civil Penalty: $14 million
Required Actions
- Investigate manufacturing for PCB contamination
- Submit investigation report and clean up plan for approval
- Remediate contamination
- Submit clean up report with full documentation
- Maintain documentation of processes that generate PCBs and concentrations
- Biannually monitor and report PCB concentrations in all releases
- Allow Nevada to publicly publish all EPA approved work plans and reports
