![[logo] US EPA](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20090807194408im_/http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/logo_epaseal.gif){kind=logo}
Compliance and Enforcement Annual Results:
FY2007 Air Case Highlights
FY2007 Annual Results Topics
Civil Enforcement Cases || Criminal Enforcement Cases
Air pollution threatens human health and damages the environment. EPA continues to enforce our nation's environmental laws and to ensure compliance with the Clean Air Act nationwide, making our air safer to breath. While often invisible, pollutants in the air create smog and acid rain and cause cancer or other serious health effects. The air pollutants addressed by these settlements can cause serious respiratory problems and exacerbate cases of childhood asthma. As a result of cases concluded in fiscal year 2007, 570 million pounds of pollution will be reduced, eliminated or properly managed.
Civil Enforcement Cases |
Criminal Enforcement Cases |
Coal-Fired Electric Utilities
Since 1999, EPA and the Department of Justice have filed several lawsuits against coal-fired electric utilities, alleging that these companies made major modifications to their plants without installing equipment to control pollution that causes smog, acid rain and soot and that contributes to severe respiratory problems and childhood asthma in violation of the New Source Review provisions of the Clean Air Act. [More Information]
The following are major cases concluded in fiscal year 2007:
Alcoa
Alcoa will spend over $330 million to install state-of-the-art pollution controls to eliminate the vast majority of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from the power plant at Alcoa's aluminum production facility in Rockdale, Texas. The settlement will reduce the company's emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by approximately 90 percent. More than 52,000 tons of (SO2) and 15,000 tons of NOx are expected to be removed from the air of central Texas each year. [More Information]
East Kentucky Power Cooperative
East Kentucky Power Cooperative will spend $650 million dollars to reduce harmful air emissions by more than 60,000 tons per year. East Kentucky will also pay a civil penalty of $750,000. The settlement requires the installation of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) to control sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions, as well as year-round operation of selective catalytic reduction devices (SCRs) to control nitrogen oxides (NOx). [More Information]
Nevada Power Company
Nevada Power Company will spend $60 million dollars to improve air quality in the Clark County, Nevada area by reducing emissions of nitrogen oxides, a harmful air pollutant, by roughly 2,300 tons annually. Additionally, they will pay a penalty of $300,000. This is the first gas-fired power plant sued under the New Source Review provisions of the Clean Air Act. [More Information]
PSEG Fossil
PSEG Fossil will pay a civil penalty of $6 million – $4.25 million to the federal government and $1.75 million to New Jersey. PSEG will also perform environmental mitigation projects valued at $3.25 million to reduce particulate matter from diesel engines in New Jersey as well as spend 1,100,000,000 to improve air quality, reducing nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide by 14,700,000 pounds. [More Information]
Wepco
Wepco will spend $600 million between now and 2013 to install state-of-the-art pollution controls to meet stringent pollution limits or to remove the sources of pollution. This will reduce approximately 105,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions annually from plants in Wisconsin and Michigan. Additionally, the company will retire the pollution emission allowances that it or others could use to emit additional pollution at the facilities, will pay a $3.2 million civil penalty and spend at least $20 million to finance an environmental mitigation project demonstrating a new technology to significantly reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. [More Information]
Grain and Oil Seed Processors
Oil seed is a hazardous air pollutant under the Clean Air Act because it can cause adverse effects on the central nervous system, the heart, and other organs. During oilseed processing some of the solvent escapes to the ambient air, where it can be readily absorbed into the body by inhalation. The solvent also contributes to photochemical reactions to produce ground-level ozone, which adversely affects the lungs.
The following major case was concluded in fiscal year 2007:
Bunge North America
Bunge North America will reduce its emissions of volatile organic compounds, including the hazardous air pollutant n-hexane, by approximately 1,122 tons per year. Bunge’s reductions include carbon monoxide (255 tons per year), nitrogen oxides (275 tons per year), and sulfur dioxide (350 tons per year). $12 million for new pollution controls will be spent to achieve these emission reductions.
Bunge will pay civil penalties of $625,000, with $361,000 of that amount paid as a federal penalty, and the remaining $264,000 divided on a per plant basis among the eight states in which it operates and will spend approximately $1,250,000 to implement a number of state supplemental environmental projects. [More Information]
Motor Vehicles (On Highway)
Mobile source pollutants include smog-forming volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides, toxic air pollutants such as cancer-causing benzene, and particulate matter or “soot” that are responsible for asthma and other respiratory illnesses. EPA enforces the Clean Air Act provisions governing motor vehicles and engines, including emissions standards for manufacturers of new motor vehicles, passenger cars and light trucks, and heavy duty motor vehicle engines. The requirements are designed to limit harmful emissions from these vehicles when they are running and evaporative emissions when they are not. [More Information]
The following are major cases concluded in fiscal year 2007:
Casper
Casper, in a landmark settlement, will pay a penalty and stop selling devices that allow cars to release excess levels of pollution into the environment in violation of the Clean Air Act. This is the first settlement of its kind and requires Casper's to stop selling electronic devices—known as oxygen sensor simulators or “O2 Sims”, recall the devices, and pay more than $74,000 in civil penalties. An O2 Sim tricks an automobile engine's computer into sensing a properly functioning emission control system, even when the catalytic converter is missing or faulty. These “after-market” sensors are considered illegal “defeat devices” under the federal Clean Air Act.
Casper has sold approximately 44,000 defeat devices through retailers and from its Web site since 2001. The EPA estimates that the increased emissions from installation of these devices over the life of the vehicles are 3,500 tons of hydrocarbons, 63,500 tons of carbon monoxide, and 5,500 tons of nitrogen oxides. This is equivalent to the emissions produced by a half-million cars with fully operational emission control systems over their lifetimes. [More Information]
Cummins Engine
Cummins Engine and six other diesel engine manufacturing companies; Caterpillar, Inc., Detroit Diesel Corporation, Mack Trucks, Inc., Navistar International Transportation Corporation, Renault Vehicules Industriels, s.a., and Volvo Truck Corporation, will spend more than one billion dollars to settle charges that they illegally poured millions of tons of pollution into the air, including an $83.4 million civil penalty, the largest in environmental enforcement history. The penalty will resolve claims that the manufacturers installed computer devices in heavy duty diesel engines which resulted in illegal amounts of air pollution emissions. This settlement will prevent 75 million tons of harmful nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions nationwide by the year 2025. [More Information]
Petroleum Refineries
Petroleum Refineries have proved to be one of the largest, most comprehensive and successful enforcement and compliance national priorities ever undertaken by EPA. EPA's investigations of petroleum refineries focused on the four most significant Clean Air Act compliance challenges for the industry and the emissions units that are the source of most of their pollution: New Source Review/Prevention of Significant Deterioration - fluidized catalytic cracking units, heaters and boilers; New Source Performance Standards – flares, sulfur recovery units, fuel gas combustion devices (including heaters and boilers); Leak Detection and Repair requirements; and Benzene National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants. EPA selected refineries as a national priority because of the high rate of violations and rate of air emissions from petroleum refineries. EPA initiated over 150 issue-specific investigations at more than 100 refineries and, beginning in fiscal year 2000, embarked on a process of “global” settlements, which address each issue of concern at all of a company’s refineries. The settlements under the this priority require state-of-the-art controls and the implementation of enhanced programs to ensure continuing compliance with applicable requirements. [More Information]
The following are major cases concluded in fical year 2007:
Total Petrochemical
Total Petrochemical will make changes to its facility, estimated to cost $37 million, that will significantly reduce the facility’s emissions of air pollutants. Once fully completed, the measures Total will implement will reduce annual emissions of nitrogen oxides by more than 180 tons, sulfur dioxide by more than 800 tons, and carbon monoxide by more than 120 tons. Additionally, Total will pay a penalty of $2,900,000. [More Information]
Sulfuric and Nitric Acid Manufacturers
EPA has entered into consent decrees with the following parties in the sulfuric and nitric acid industry: E I Dupont de Nemours, Rhodia Inc. and Agrium/Royster Clark Inc. Under these agreements, the parties have agreed to reduce emissions at their sulfuric and nitric acid plants. These agreements will result in pollutant reductions of 32,200 tons per year (200 tons of nitrogen oxides and 32,000 tons of sulfur dioxide reduced per year). Approximately $1,537,320,000 will be saved per year by American families and our health care system in avoided health-related costs associated with respiratory and cardio-pulmonary illnesses, including asthma and heart attacks. In the agreements, the companies have committed to spend more than $116 million on pollution control technology.
The following are major cases concluded in fiscal year 2007:
Agrium/Royster Clarke
Agrium/Royster Clarke, a nitric acid production facility, will pay $750,000 in civil penalties to settle violations of the New Source Review (NSR) provisions of the Clean Air Act. The company also agreed to install state-of-the-art pollution control equipment at the facility that will reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions by more than 200 tons per year. The companies made modifications to a facility without first obtaining necessary federal pre-construction permits and installing the required pollution control equipment. The un-permitted modifications caused the facility to emit more NOx than allowed by federal law. [More Information]
DuPont
DuPont will reduce more than 13,000 tons of harmful emissions annually from four sulfuric acid production plants in Louisiana, Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky. Du Pont will spend at least $66 million on air pollution controls at the plants and pay a civil penalty of $4.125 million under the Clean Air Act settlement. [More Information]
Rhodia
Acid manufacturer Rhodia Inc. will pay a $2 million penalty and spend approximately $50 million on air pollution controls at eight production plants in Texas, Louisiana, California and Indiana to resolve allegations that the company violated the Clean Air Act. The pollution controls are expected to reduce harmful emissions from its production plants in the four states by 19,000 tons per year. Rhodia is the first sulfuric acid manufacturer in the nation to agree to a company-wide "global" compliance agreement. As a result of these actions, actual emissions at some of the Rhodia plants will decrease by more than 90 percent. [More Information]
Criminal Enforcement Cases
Air Toxics
Toxic air pollutants, also known as hazardous air pollutants, are known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious health effects, such as reproductive effects or birth defects, or adverse environmental effects. Regulated facilities have permits which limit the amount of allowable emissions of these pollutants. Examples of toxic air pollutants include benzene, perchlorethlyene, methylene chloride, toluene, and metals such as cadmium, mercury, chromium, and lead compounds.
The following are major cases concluded this fiscal year.
Amitech, USA, LLC (Louisiana)
Amitech, USA, LLC, a pipe manufacturing company, was sentenced to pay a fine of $1,070,000, community restitution of $100,000, and serve three years probation after pleading guilty to failure to report unpermitted air emissions. Amitech’s Zachary, Louisiana, facility produced pipe without the required environmental controls to limit the emission of styrene, a hazardous air pollutant. The former plant manager also pled guilty to negligent endangerment under the CAA. [More Information (PDF)], (pp 4, 532 KB, About PDF)
Honeywell International (Louisiana)
Honeywell International pleaded guilty to negligently causing the release of hazardous air pollutants and negligently placing another person in imminent danger of death in violation of the Clean Air Act. A worker at Honeywell’s Baton Rouge, Louisiana plant died after opening a one-ton cylinder containing a highly toxic chemical that had been erroneously labeled as containing a relatively benign refrigerant. Honeywell was sentenced to pay an $8 million fine, restitution of $2 million to the worker’s children and $2 million to the State of Louisiana. [More Information (PDF)], (pp 4, 532 KB, About PDF)
Asbestos
is a carcinogen, and exposure can result in serious or fatal respiratory diseases, including lung cancer and mesothelioma. Asbestos is commonly used in thermal insulation, fireproofing and other building materials. When asbestos-containing materials become damaged or disturbed, the fibers separate and may become airborne and inhaled into the lungs. The EPA requires anyone disturbing building materials that may contain asbestos to keep the materials wet in order to prevent the fibers from becoming airborne.
The following are major cases concluded this fiscal year.
Dylan Starnes (Virgin Islands)
Dylan Starnes, an employee of the Atlanta based Environmental Contracting Company, was sentenced to 33 months in prison and three years of probation for improperly removing asbestos from a low-income public housing project on St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and making materially false statements to federal agencies concerning air monitoring at the project. In addition to the jail sentence, Starnes must also pay for the cost of medical surveillance required for any people who were exposed to the asbestos. [More Information]
John Edward Callahan (Virginia)
John Edward Callahan was sentenced to 21 months in prison for knowingly removing asbestos-containing material from a government building in Roanoke, Virginia, without following the appropriate procedures. The City of Roanoke hired Callahan to remove asbestos-containing material from a building in March 2004. Callahan hired three homeless men who were not certified or properly trained to remove asbestos. Callahan also did not provide the homeless men with adequate protective gear. [More Information (PDF)], (pp 2, 29K, About PDF)
San Diego Gas and Electric Company (California)
A federal jury in San Diego, California found San Diego Gas and Electric Company guilty on three counts of violating asbestos work practice standards and one count of making false statements. The charges relate to the company's removal of asbestos from 9.23 miles of underground piping at the former Encanto Gas Holder facility in Lemon Grove, Calif., in 2000 and 2001. Besides the company, the project manager for the prime contractor on the site and a company employee were each found guilty of one count of violating asbestos work practice standards. Sentencing had not occurred by the end of Fiscal year 2007. [More Information]
CFC Smuggling
CFCs are refrigerant gases used in air conditioners. The Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances highly restricts the importation of CFCs into the United States because they deplete the earth’s ozone layer and can cause skin cancer and cataracts in people. Illegal importation of CFCs can be a criminal violation.
The following are major cases concluded this fiscal year.
Ahed Alghazouli (California)
Ahed Alghazouli was sentenced in California to serve 30 months in custody after pleading guilty to the charge of Conspiracy to Launder Money, in connection with the proceeds of the sale of illegally imported R-12 Freon refrigerant. He also was fined $6,000 fine and ordered to forfeit his interest in two bank accounts, and a house in Arizona. [More Information (PDF)], (pp 3, 46K, About PDF)
Petroleum Refineries
EPA selected refineries as a national priority because of the high rate of violations and rate of air emissions from petroleum refineries.
The following are major cases concluded this fiscal year.
CITGO Petroleum Corp. (Texas)
CITGO Petroleum Corp. (Texas) and its subsidiary, CITGO Refining and Chemicals Co. were convicted by a federal jury on two felony criminal violations of the Clean Air Act. CITGO was convicted on two counts of operating two huge open top tanks without installing the proper emission controls required by federal law at its Corpus Christi East Plant Refinery, Corpus Christi, Texas. Sentencing had not occurred by the end of Fiscal year 2007. [More Information]
Annual Results by Fiscal Year
FY2007 |
FY2006 |
FY2005 |
FY2004 |
FY2003 |
FY2002 |
FY2001 |
FY2000 |
FY1999