Guy O. Hoy, III, the owner of Hoy's Marine, a Newport, Ore., ship repair facility that ceased doing business in May 2000, was sentenced on June 4 to four months in prison for violating the Clean Water Act. Hoy also was ordered to subsequently serve four months of home detention, perform 40 hours of environmental community service and pay $70,000 restitution and $27,000 in state fines.
Hoy's company renovated and painted ships by raising them out of the Yaquina River and pressure washing and sand blasting the hulls. Twice previously fined and repeatedly warned since 1996 by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to cease the practice, Hoy continued to allow sandblast grit and antifoulant marine paint to be discharged into the Yaquina River. Sandblasting residue and antifoulant marine paint can contain heavy metals, which can harm fish and aquatic life.
The case was investigated by EPA's Criminal Investigation
Division, the FBI, the Oregon State Police and the Oregon DEQ. It
was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's office in Eugene, Ore.
ALASKA MAN PLEADS TO CONCEALING ENVIRONMENTAL CRIME
Gary Hitchings, an officer and director of Technic Services Inc., an Alaska asbestos abatement contracting company, pleaded guilty on May 31 to misprison (illegal concealment) of a felony by failing to report a violation of the Clean Water Act. The violation involved the removal of asbestos from the Alaska Pulp Corp. in Sitka, Alaska.
Hitchings was responsible for assuring that all asbestos containing material at the facility was properly removed in accordance with environmental rules and regulations. During the removal, the defendant learned that slushy waste containing asbestos abatement waste was allowed to enter a drain system at the facility and flow directly into Silver Bay in violation of the Clean Water Act. However, Hitchings concealed the violation. Discharging contaminated slurry into surface waters can be harmful to fish and other aquatic life.
The case was investigated by EPA's Criminal Investigation
Division and the FBI with the assistance of the EPA Office of Air
Quality, EPA's National Enforcement Investigations Center and the
Alaska Department of Labor. It is being prosecuted by the U.S.
Attorney's office in Anchorage.
TENNESSEE PHYSICIAN SENTENCED FOR CLEAN WATER ACT VIOLATION
Clary P. Foote, a Harriman, Tenn., physician who owned a power plant there, pleaded guilty and was sentenced on June 7 for violating the Clean Water Act. Foote will spend 12 months in home confinement, perform 300 hours of community service, pay a $10,000 fine, publish an apology in the Knoxville and Roan County, Tenn., newspapers and pay $74,956.64 to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Tennessee Valley Authority Police and Southern Environment Enforcement Training Inc., a company that will provide environmental training within the community.
The offense occurred in February 1999 shortly after the defendant purchased the power plant at the former Harriman Power and Paper Mill. The site had a storage tank that contained approximately 500,000 gallons of a mixture of pulp waste known as "black liquor" and water. The defendant and an employee went to the tank during a rainstorm on Feb. 14, 1999, and opened a valve which allowed the black liquor contents of the tank to flow into a pond that emptied into the Emory River. The contents had a high chemical oxygen demand level which had a negative impact on vegetation and aquatic life in the river.
The case was investigated by EPA's Criminal Investigation
Division and members of the East Tennessee Environmental Crimes
Task Force. It was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's office in
Greenville, Tenn.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES GUILTY PLEA IN NEW JERSEY ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES CASE
The Department of Justice announced that Alan Hodgson pled guilty to a one-count information charging him with knowingly failing to file reports required by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Hodgson was the former Northeast Regional Operations Manager for Edison, N.J.-based SGS Control Services, Inc.
Hodgson withheld quarterly Reformulated Gasoline and Anti-Dumping Batch Reports from the EPA in order to hide false analyses that he provided to certain SGS customers. Known as "bubble reports" in the gasoline refining and blending industry, these documents allow EPA to track compliance with a program designed to get cleaner-burning, reformulated gasoline into areas afflicted by air pollution.
"This prosecution demonstrates that the United States will not hesitate to prosecute those who falsify or withhold reports in ways that undermine our ability to enforce the nation's environmental laws," said Tom Sansonetti, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division.
Hodgson's former company, SGS Control Services, provides measurement and analytical services to the petroleum industry. In particular, SGS laboratories certify the quality of various grades of gasoline. When Hodgson managed operations at SGS, he would sometimes provide petroleum blenders with certificates showing that their gasoline met environmental specifications when, in fact, the gasoline was substandard. Rather than report these false certifications to the EPA, Hodgson withheld the required bubble reports. Such reports are pivotal to the EPA's reformulated gasoline program, which is founded on truthful self-reporting by refiners, blenders and their independent laboratories.
Hodgson's guilty plea was the result of an agreement between
Hodgson and the Environmental Crimes Section of the Department of
Justice. Hodgson has agreed to cooperate with the government in
its continuing investigations of laboratory fraud. The
Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division
and the United States Postal Inspection Service investigated this
case.
US ANNOUNCES MAJOR NATURAL RESOURCE DAMAGES SETTLEMENT FOR FOX RIVER PCB SITE
The Justice Department announced that a settlement filed this week will require the Fort James Operating Company to preserve more than 1,000 acres of wildlife habitat in northeastern Wisconsin and pay an additional $8.5 million for other restoration projects. The settlement provides compensation for injuries to natural resources caused by widespread polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination in the Fox River and the Green Bay.
In addition to its payments for restoration projects, Fort James will pay $1.6 million to help offset natural resource damage assessment costs and other costs incurred by the United States and the state of Wisconsin, as provided by the Superfund law.
Fort James is a subsidiary of Georgia Pacific Corporation and is one of several companies responsible for the PCB contamination. Fort James is the first of the companies to fully resolve its natural resource damage liability. A December 2001 agreement with Appleton Papers Inc. and NCR Corporation has already provided $20 million in interim funding for natural resource restoration projects in the Green Bay watershed, but that agreement did not settle those companies' ultimate liability for natural resource damages.
PCBs were discharged to the Fox River by several Fox River Valley paper mills that produced and processed PCB-containing "carbonless" copy paper from the 1950s through at least the early 1970s. The PCBs contaminated the sediments in the Fox River and in the Green Bay, and continue to harm wildlife and other natural resources in the area, including fish and birds. For example, PCBs are routinely found in fish in those bodies of water, and health-based fish consumption advisories limit the type and amount of fish from the area that can safely be eaten.
The settlement with Fort James was reached through negotiations conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Department of Justice, as well as the responsible Federal, State and Tribal natural resource trustees, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin and the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. The trustees have reviewed and approved the specific restoration projects described in the settlement agreement filed with the court, and will jointly select future projects to be funded with additional money available under the settlement.
The natural resource damages settlement does not resolve Fort James' liability for PCB cleanup. In October 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources released a cleanup proposal calling for dredging and offsite disposal of contaminated Fox River sediments coupled with monitored natural recovery in portions of the River and in Green Bay. The agencies are currently reviewing the public comments they have received.
This week's settlement agreement was filed with the U.S. District
Court in Milwaukee and is subject to a 30-day public comment
period.
EPA ESTABLISHES CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER POSITION
Debra D. Stouffer has been selected for EPA's newly established leadership position, Chief Technology Officer. She will provide advice on critical information technology (IT) issues to the Assistant Administrator for Environmental Information and Chief Information Officer (CIO).
Stouffer was Deputy CIO for IT reform, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, from May 1999 to January 2002 and served at the Office of Management and Budget, Office of the President, from January to April 2002, where she developed the federal government's first business and reference model and business architecture. In IT operations, "architecture" describes all of the supporting IT components needed to make a business operation function. She provided component-based architecture frameworks to guide solution development for Presidential E-government initiatives.
As EPA's CTO, Stouffer will serve as executive-level advisor for
agency-wide IT projects, IT management planning processes and
project management improvement efforts and co-chair the effort to
address the technical sufficiency and soundness of agency-wide IT
investments. An Agency priority is to align its business and data
architecture with the President's management agenda for
E-government.
PROGRESS REPORT RELEASED ON THE CLEAN DIESEL PROGRAM
EPA is releasing a comprehensive technology review of the progress that industry is making toward meeting the requirements of the 2007 Highway Heavy Duty Clean Diesel regulations. These regulations will help achieve public health benefits through the introduction of new emission standards that will result in significant reductions in particulate matter or soot and oxides of nitrogen from diesel trucks and buses.
The "Highway Diesel Progress Review" report provides the Agency's review of the progress of diesel engines manufacturers to reduce emissions and the petroleum refining industry in developing and demonstrating technologies to lower the sulfur level in diesel fuel. The Agency found that both industries are making significant progress needed to comply with the program's requirements and therefore confirming that the program will be successfully implemented.
The report will be discussed at the next meeting of the Clean
Diesel Independent Review Panel, June 27 and 28, at the Radisson
Hotel Old Town in Alexandria, Va. A copy of the report and
additional information about the panel meeting are available at:
http://www.epa.gov/air/caaac/clean_diesel.html.
BUSINESSES ENCOURAGED TO RENEW HAZMAT REGISTRATION OVER INTERNET
For businesses shipping or transporting hazardous materials, renewing their hazmat registration is an annual event that generally requires completing paper forms, writing a check, and taking that check and form to the Post Office prior to the July 1 registration date. Is there an easier way? Yes.
Shippers, transporters and carriers of hazardous materials can register on the Internet through a system that has been available for two years. The U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA) offers an online hazmat registration site called "HAZMAT." Registration is as simple as a point and click.
The hazmat registration e-government site is a convenient, secure way for businesses to pay the registration fee electronically and offers many benefits to businesses. For example, the electronic fee payment form is a user-friendly menu-driven "fill-in-the-blank" form, eliminating the need for businesses to complete the paper form, write a check, and mail the check and form. The e-government site is easy to use, accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and allows businesses to receive an immediate acknowledgement of payment. In addition, e-government provides a multitude of efficiencies to the government. There is a dramatic reduction in paperwork as well as improved speed and accuracy of fee payment information.
For the registration year 2002-2003, which begins July 1, 2002, the hazardous materials registration fees remain $300 for small businesses and $2,000 for all other businesses. Both include a $25 processing fee. The hazardous materials registration funds the DOT's Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness (HMEP) grants program which supports hazmat emergency response training and planning activities by state, territorial, tribal and local governments. Over 800,000 emergency responders have been trained, in part, using HMEP grants funded by the registration fees.
Registration may be accomplished on-line at http://hazmat.dot.gov/register.htm or by phone, (800) 942-6990. Registration forms are on-line, and available upon request by phone at (617) 494-2545, (202) 366-4109, or email at register@rspa.dot.gov. Registration forms may also be mailed to: U.S. Department of Transportation, Hazardous Materials Registration, P.O. Box 740188, Atlanta, GA 30374-0188.
RSPA has public responsibilities for safe and secure movement of
hazardous materials to industry and consumers by all
transportation modes, including the nation's pipelines; rapid
response to emergencies by government agencies; and applying
science and technology to meet national transportation needs.
UPCOMING DEADLINES
Clean Air Act (CAA)
- July 21, 2002 - Existing sources subject to organic hazardous air
pollutant emission controls under 40 CFR 63, subpart H, for
equipment leaks from Group V chemical process units must submit
semiannual report to EPA
- July 22, 2002 - Existing sources subject to organic hazardous air
pollutant emission controls under 40 CFR 63, subpart H, for
equipment leaks from Group I chemical process units must submit
semiannual report to EPA
- July 23, 2002 - Existing sources subject to organic hazardous air
pollutant emission controls under 40 CFR 63, subpart H, for
equipment leaks from Group III chemical process units must submit
semiannual report to EPA
Department of Transportation (DOT)
- June 30, 2002 - HAZMAT registration due
Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)
- July 1, 2002 - Prepare written annual PCB Document logs
- July 15, 2002 - Annual PCB report due