Texas’ Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against BP for violating the state’s pollution laws. The civil lawsuit cites 46 releases of pollution at the refinery, including those associated with a 2005 explosion that killed 15 employees and injured 180 others. Unspecified monetary damages are sought for each day each violation occurred, in addition to […]

One of thirteen companies named in a 2005 lawsuit claiming the over-application of poultry litter is responsible for contamination in the one-million-acre Illinois River watershed has proposed to pay $120,000 to settle. The settlement has been challenged by the remaining twelve companies, who are demanding clarification on how that figure was determined and how the […]

A breach in a huge coal ash storage facility that released 54 million cubic yards of toxic laden ash into the Emory River in Kingston, Tennessee and a nearby neighborhood has residents worried about their health, lost property values and the slow cleanup by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The Environmental Protection Agency recently assumed oversight […]

An underground storage tank in Jacksonville, Maryland dripped about 26,000 gallons of gasoline over 37 days in this small community twenty miles north of Baltimore before the leak was discovered in February 2006. The oil company responsible for the leak is issuing each family affected a disbursement of $1 million plus the value of their […]

The owners of a small insurance agency in Odgensburg, New York are being sued for the $374,000 cleanup of their office property, a former gas station. After routine construction excavation revealed oil contamination on the property, several 55-gallon drums were found on the site. The property was remediated in 2006, and per New York state […]

A West Virginia federal grand jury charged a small electroplating business with illegally storing sulfuric acid and other hazardous waste. The two operators of the business failed to obtain the necessary permit from the EPA and have been charged with storing hazardous waste without a permit from October 2006 through February 2007. The EPA cleaned […]

A large Alaska oil company has paid more than $1.7 million for spill containment violations. An October 2007 inspection revealed the company was operating storage tanks and truck-loading facilities without large enough secondary spill containment to prevent oil from seeping into the ground. The company has corrected most of the deficiencies, with the remainder to […]

Two dairies in Ohio and Kansas have been fined nearly $420,000 by OSHA for alleged health and safety violations.  OSHA inspections at the Ohio dairy uncovered 11 critical safety violations and 5 willful violations of federal workplace safety standards that included deficiencies with regard to electrical safety, energy lockout procedures and confined space entry procedures. The […]

A pair of energy companies in New Hampshire are on the hook for over $175,000 in EPA fines after diesel fuel from their gas station leaked into a nearby river earlier this year. Due to a broken leak detection system, the spill was not reported until neighboring businesses noticed a strong fuel smell three days […]

The EPA has filed a lawsuit against a large sewer authority in Pennsylvania for illegally discharging over a billion gallons of untreated sewage into a nearby river. The complaint seeks fines of up to $37,000 per day for violations between 2004 and 2009, and $37,500 from January 2009 onward. Allegations include failure to submit long-term […]

A large petrochemical manufacturer in Texas and Louisiana will spend over $10 million to implement pollution control initiatives resulting from air, water and hazardous waste violations. The company will also pay a civil penalty of $2.8 million to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The […]

A U.S. District Court in Indiana sentenced the former superintendent of a wastewater treatment facility to one year in prison for falsifying discharge monitoring reports. The erroneous reports concealed violations of the Clean Water Act. The former plant head admitted to making as many as 55 separate falsifications in reports from September 2004 through May […]