EPA Settles With Air Products on Acid Waste from Texas Plant
WASHINGTON -- The EPA and the Justice Dept. have announced that
Air Products LLC has agreed to pay nearly $1.5 million in civil
penalties to resolve hazardous waste mismanagement violations at
its Pasadena, Texas chemical manufacturing facility.
The settlement resolves Air Products’ Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA) violations in transferring spent acid to the
neighboring Agrifos fertilizer manufacturing plant.
This case is related to EPA’s National Enforcement Initiative
for Mining and Mineral Processing. Although Air Products does
not conduct mining or mineral processing, it sent the spent acid
stream to a facility that does -- the Agrifos fertilizer plant.
Mining and mineral processing facilities generate more toxic and
hazardous waste than any other industrial sector, based on EPA’s
Toxic Release Inventory. If not properly managed, wastes from
these facilities may pose a high risk to human health and the
environment. Since 2003, EPA has been investigating 20
phosphoric acid facilities in seven states.
“We are concerned that wastes from mineral processing and
associated fertilizer production can pose a serious risk to our
nation’s drinking water and the health of families,” said
Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
“And we’re just as concerned when contaminated wastes
from other facilities find their way to these operations.
EPA is working to minimize or eliminate risks to
communities and the environment from illegal hazardous waste
operations at phosphoric acid and other high risk facilities.”
“This settlement eliminates the disposal of spent-acid waste
from the Air Products facility into the environment,” said
Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice
Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
“By stopping this source of pollution, this settlement
will reduce risks to human health and the environment.”
As part of the settlement, Air Products has agreed to continue
to manage the spent acid on-site and not ship it to Agrifos or
any other facility not authorized to accept it.
Air Products is currently in compliance with the RCRA
requirements specified in the settlement.
Air Products, a manufacturer of chemicals used in the
manufacture of polyurethane and hydrogen gas, operates its
facility on a 105-acre tract of property adjacent to the Agrifos
fertilizer plant. For many years, the company purchased acid
product from Agrifos and returned a spent acid stream that Air
Products had used in its operations.
In April 2006, inspectors from EPA and the Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality (TCEQ) observed that the return acid
stream was a spent acid that was being used to make land-applied
fertilizer. Agrifos
is not authorized to accept hazardous waste from other
facilities.
Before the settlement was concluded, Air Products instituted
modifications that will reduce the levels of contamination in
the spent acid, and the construction of a $60 million
regeneration plant that will stop the acid waste stream
altogether.
Air Products also has agreed to continue to manage the spent
acid on site and not ship it to Agrifos or any other facility
not authorized to accept it.
Air Products has agreed to notify EPA and TCEQ in the
event that the spent acid is either disposed of or sent off
site.
A 2007 incident at the Agrifos phosphoric acid facility in
Houston released 50 million gallons of acidic hazardous
wastewater into the Houston Ship Channel. Another example is the
65 million gallon release of acidic wastewaters from the Mosaic
Riverview facility into Tampa Bay in 2004, which led to a
massive local fish kill.
The proposed settlement agreement, lodged in the U.S. District
Court for the Southern District of Texas, is subject to a 30-day
public comment period and approval by the federal court.
For more information on the settlement, go to
www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/cases/civil/rcra/airproducts.html
