SAN FRANCISCO - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice today announced a $340 million settlement with 161 responsible parties and the state of California for the Operating Industries Inc. Superfund site in Monterey Park, California. (Read more)

SAN FRANCISCO – The Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced a $14.95 million settlement with the state of California resolving the state=s liability at the Casmalia Resources Superfund Site near Santa Maria in Central California. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced two comprehensive environmental settlements with Conoco Inc., Navajo Refining Company and Montana Refining Company that are expected to reduce harmful air emissions from seven U.S. petroleum refineries by more than 10,000 tons per year. The states of Louisiana, Oklahoma, Montana, Colorado and New Mexico are joining the settlements, which are part of EPA's national effort to reduce air emissions from refineries. (Read more)

The United States has reached a settlement with four companies allegedly liable for the cleanup of the 120-acre Boarhead Farms Superfund Site in Upper Black Eddy, Bridgeton Township, Pennsylvania, the Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The former president of a national testing laboratory pleaded guilty today in federal court in Newark, New Jersey to obstruction of justice for lying to government investigators about his role in altering lab results relating to fuel oil, the Justice Department announced. According to today's plea, Richard M. Kaminski, the president of Caleb Brett, U.S.A., Inc, encouraged employees at the company's facilities in Linden, N.J. and Puerto Rico from 1988 through 1997 to alter #6 fuel oil test results to benefit Caleb Brett's clients by reporting results that were different than those reflected by the analytical instruments used to test the fuel. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Justice Department today announced that two related companies, Premium Standard Farms (PSF) and Continental Grain Company, which together comprise the second largest producer of hogs in the United States, have entered into a settlement to resolve environmental violations at the companies' large-scale farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), in Missouri. The settlement was reached with the United States and the Citizens Legal Environmental Action Network, a citizens group (CLEAN). (Read more)

WASHINGTON, DC – Today the United States and the State of Louisiana announced a civil settlement with the City of Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish, La., intended to end years of sewage overflows and long-standing violations of the Clean Water Act. The settlement will require the jurisdictions to make extensive improvements to their co-owned and operated municipal sewage treatment and collection system that are intended to reduce discharges of untreated sewage to public areas and U.S. waters by more than 1.2 billion gallons annually. (Read more)

WASHINGTON IBP Inc, the world's largest meatpacker, has agreed to pay the United States $4.1 million in penalties for violating the nation's environmental laws. Under the settlement, IBP has committed to construct additional wastewater treatment systems at its Dakota City, Nebraska plant to reduce its discharges of ammonia to the Missouri River, and has agreed to continue and expand operational improvements ordered last year that will significantly reduce hydrogen sulfur air emissions. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. The president and operations manager of a Houston-based gasoline blending company pleaded guilty today to participating in a conspiracy to falsify lab results on hundreds of millions of gallons of reformulated gasoline (RFG), the Justice Department announced. Those pleading guilty before Judge Harold A. Ackerman in Federal District Court in Newark, New Jersey are Waldo "Wally" Schroeder, 53, of Houston, president of BMS; Mark Schroeder, 43 of The Woodlands, Texas, BMS operations manager; and Blending, Marketing and Service, Inc.(BMS), a Houston-based fuel-blending company. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced settlements in cases against three landlords in Chicago for failure to warn their tenants that their homes may contain lead-based paint hazards. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corporation and Novartis Corporation have agreed to perform soil clean up at one of New Jersey's Superfund sites under an agreement reached today with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. Arnold Benus, the president and majority shareholder of the Copamarina Beach Resort in Guánica, P.R., and Concho Corporation, the corporation that operated the hotel, were sentenced today to pay fines totaling $430,000 for illegally discharging sewage into Caña Gorda Beach. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. A $120 million settlement of Superfund cost recovery litigation brought by the United States and the State of Texas against numerous oil refiners and petrochemical companies for contamination at the Sikes Disposal Pits Superfund Site located near Crosby, Texas has been reached, the Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Texas announced today. The defendants include ARCO, Crown Central Petroleum Corp., Occidental Chemical Corp., Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Rohm & Haas, Inc., Shell Oil Co., The El Paso Group, Exxon Mobil Corp., Phillips Petroleum Company, and Vacuum Tanks, Inc. (Read more)

WASHINGTON The former president of an environmental contracting firm pleaded guilty today to several felonies related to his role in an illegal scheme that caused hundreds of people to incorrectly believe their underground storage tanks were tested properly for leaks of petroleum and other contaminants. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. The president and vice president of Construction Personnel Inc., a contract labor firm, were sentenced today on several felony charges resulting from their scheme to hiring unauthorized aliens from Mexico, Central and South America to remove asbestos. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The corporate owner of a Kansas City, Mo. automobile assembly plant and its former general manager have been indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly improperly removing asbestos from the plant in September 1997. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. A federal grand jury in Charlottesville, Va., today returned an indictment charging two men with conspiring to illegally remove asbestos from aging buildings. The defendants recruited untrained homeless men to remove asbestos from properties in Staunton, Va., without providing the necessary safety equipment or training. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. In the 1990s, the United States intervened in five lawsuits brought by Indian tribes against the State of New York and private landowners to resolve claims that the State of New York had acquired land from the tribes in violation of federal law. On January 19, 2000, the former administration announced that it had reviewed the United States' position on the role of private landowners in these lawsuits and had determined that the United States' policy was not to seek relief from individual landowners, but rather to hold the State liable for any and all remedies awarded by the courts. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A federal grand jury in New Haven, Conn. has returned an indictment charging five men for allegedly engaging in a scheme to trade in chemicals that deplete the Earth's ozone layer and that are strictly regulated in the United States. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. Federal agents have arrested six individuals charged with crimes related to the illegal importation of internationally protected species of rare orchids or cycads. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. The Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have reached a settlement with Texaco that requires the company to install new pollution control equipment at two of its oil field operations in Kern County, Calif. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Illinois today announced an agreement with The Premcor Refining Group Inc. that will significantly reduce harmful air pollution, including more than 4,700 tons of sulfur dioxide annually, from Premcor's petroleum refinery in Hartford, Ill. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. A Washington-area landlord pleaded guilty today to obstructing justice and making false statements to federal officials, in order to conceal his failure to notify tenants of the presence and hazards associated with lead-based paint. The case is the first-ever criminal prosecution in the United States related to lead hazard warnings that are required by the federal Lead Hazard Reduction Act of 1992. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department today announced that Amtrak, the nation's largest passenger rail operator, has signed an agreement to carry out environmental audits at its facilities nationwide and undertake other environmental improvements, including projects to restore wetlands and reduce PCBs in locomotive transformers. The agreement settles claims that Amtrak violated numerous requirements of the Clean Water Act, including its storm water provisions, at nine Amtrak sites in New England. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced a ground-breaking Clean Air Act settlement with Air Liquide America Corporation to replace refrigerant chemicals that destroy the earth's stratospheric ozone layer with environmentally friendly alternatives. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the state of Indiana today announced that Guide Corp. will pay more than $10 million to settle a civil lawsuit over one of the largest fish kills in Indiana history. The company, an automotive lighting manufacturer, agreed to pay $6 million into two White River restoration funds, $2 million to reimburse the costs of agencies that responded to the fish kill, and $2 million in civil penalties. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Keng Liang "Anson" Wong, an international wildlife dealer who spent nearly two years in a Mexican prison fighting extradition to the United States, has been sentenced in federal court in San Francisco to 71 months incarceration and a fine of $60,000, after pleading late yesterday guilty to 40 felony charges stemming from 1998 and 1992 indictments for trafficking in some of the most rare and endangered reptile species in the world. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today reached an environmental agreement with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to resolve claims the retailer violated the Clean Water Act at 17 locations in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Massachusetts. This is the first federal enforcement action against a company for multi-state violations of the Act's storm water provisions. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. EPA and the Justice Department today announced an environmental agreement with Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC that is expected to reduce air emissions from seven petroleum refineries by more than 23,000 tons per year. The states of Minnesota and Louisiana, as well as Wayne County, Mich., are joining the settlement, which is part of the EPA's national effort to reduce harmful air pollution released from refineries. (Read more)

WASHINGTON - A New Jersey testing laboratory was sentenced today to an aggregate fine of $1 million dollars and to three years of probation for its part in a conspiracy to mislead investigators about a scheme to falsify chemical analyses involving hundreds of millions of gallons of reformulated gasoline, the Justice Department announced. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Koch Petroleum Group, L.P. pled guilty today to covering up environmental violations at its oil refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Justice Department, the U.S. EPA, the states of Louisiana and Delaware, and the Northwest Air Pollution Authority today announced agreements with three petroleum refiners that will reduce air emissions from nine refineries by over 60,000 tons per year. The agreements with Motiva Enterprises, Equilon Enterprises, and Deer Park Refining Limited Partnership will affect petroleum refineries located in Delaware, Louisiana, Texas, California, and Washington. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A federal grand jury in Greenbelt, Md. today returned a 15-count indictment charging landlord David D. Nuyen with obstructing justice and submitting false documents to federal officials, in order to conceal his alleged failure to notify tenants of the presence and hazards associated with lead-based paint. The indictment is the first-ever criminal prosecution in the United States related to lead hazard warnings that are required under the federal Lead Hazard Reduction Act of 1992. (Read more)

WASHINGTON - A federal grand jury in Columbia, S.C., has returned a 15-count indictment against an environmental contractor and its former president, charging that they carried out an illegal scheme that caused hundreds of people to incorrectly believe their underground storage tanks were tested properly for leaks of petroleum and other contaminants. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency today announced a settlement with Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corporation (Transco), under which the company has agreed to test for and clean up soil and groundwater contamination related to waste disposal at numerous compressor stations along its natural gas pipeline, which traverses 12 states from Texas to New York. In addition, the company will clean up polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination, complete a storm water monitoring program, conduct storm water sampling at several compressor stations and pay a $1.4 million civil penalty. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department and the EPA today announced an environmental settlement with BP Corporation that is expected to reduce air emissions from eight petroleum refineries by more than 40,000 tons per year. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - TRW Vehicle Safety Systems Inc. will resolve charges that it violated hazardous waste laws at its airbag manufacturing plant in Queen Creek, Ariz., under a civil settlement and criminal plea agreement announced today by the United States and the State of Arizona. (Read more)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Justice today filed suit against Magnesium Corporation of America, its parent corporation Renco Metals, and other related entities, charging that the mineral mining company is illegally handling hazardous waste at its magnesium production plant on the edge of the Great Salt Lake. (Read more)