A Massachusetts company that manufactures materials used in laboratory analysis has agreed to pay $199,500 to settle claims by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that it violated state and federal hazardous waste laws.
Waters Technologies Corp., based in Taunton, generates a range of hazardous wastes that include ignitable waste; corrosive waste; reactive waste; characteristically toxic waste; waste solvents, and off-specification waste.
The case stems from a March 2014 inspection by EPA in which inspectors identified numerous violations of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
EPA alleged that the company failed to follow standards for the storage of hazardous wastes in tanks and to follow several regulations requiring the company to monitor potential air emissions from equipment that contains volatile organic waste.
EPA also alleged that the company failed to ensure that waste solvents would not be released from its facility. The alleged violations could have resulted in releases of hazardous waste or hazardous waste constituents to the environment.
“It is essential that companies handling, managing or storing hazardous materials make sure they carefully follow hazardous waste laws, including laws pertaining to air emissions from hazardous waste tanks, which help ensure protections for workers, their surrounding community, and the environment,” said Curt Spalding, regional administrator of EPA’s New England office.
EPA said that immediately after its inspection, Waters Technology voluntarily contracted with a third-party consultant and put in place practices and technologies that brought the facility into compliance with relevant hazardous waste regulations, minimizing the risks of emission of hazardous wastes to the environment and employee exposure to hazardous wastes.
Topics Claims Massachusetts Pollution
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