Chesapeake Fertilizer Company Fined For Pollution
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Chesapeake Fertilizer Company Fined For Pollution
Date:
Tue, 13 Aug 2002 10:32:09 -400
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Source: Virginian - Pilot
Publication date: 2002-08-03
Arrival time: 2002-08-04
Chesapeake Fertilizer Company Fined For Pollution
Royster-Clark Inc., a national fertilizer company, has agreed to pay a $10,000 penalty and make environmental improvements at its Chesapeake plant to settle years of pollution and reporting violations.
A company spokesman in North Carolina declined Friday to discuss the settlement, which was signed in June and published earlier this week for public comment by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
Case records indicate problems dating to 1997, when Royster- Clark bought the plant from Weaver Fertilizer. The site sits on Newton Creek, which feeds the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River, in an industrial corner of Chesapeake.
Soon after the purchase, Royster-Clark entered into an agreement with state regulators pledging to upgrade the aging facility, decontaminate groundwater tainted with sulfuric acid, and meet new limits for discharging phosphorus wastes into state waters.
While progress has been made, and Royster-Clark has spent "several hundred thousand dollars" on the renovation, excessive amounts of phosphorus and ammonia and overly acidic wastewater still are washing off the property and harming the river, according to state records and company memos.
"It's an old site that continues to show problems almost every time it rains," said David S. Gussman, a state environmental enforcement specialist who negotiated the settlement. The rain, he explained, carries into adjacent waters traces of phosphorus and other materials used to make fertilizer.
Heavy flows of nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, are considered the biggest pollutants afflicting the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. The excessive nutrients spur algae blooms, which can rob oxygen from waterways, making it difficult for plants and fish to survive.
In addition, Royster-Clark has been cited for discharging contaminated storm water into the James River without a permit at its facility in Petersburg, just south of Richmond, a state environmental official said Friday.
The company was sent a notice-of-violation on May 28, after tainted water escaped dykes around storage tanks, said James Golden, assistant director of the state environment department in the Piedmont region, which includes Petersburg.
Officials have not decided how to settle the violation, Golden said.
According to its corporate Web site, Royster-Clark operates more than a dozen fertilizer plants and distribution centers in Virginia, including one in Suffolk and on the Eastern Shore. The company is more than 125 years old and involved in fertilizer, seed and crop protection, mostly for agricultural customers.
In Chesapeake, Royster-Clark has told state regulators that it has closed an old lagoon that once held sulfuric acid wastes, has stopped manufacturing superphosphate fertilizer and has moved indoors many of its handling and treament processes, according to case records.
Gussman, the state enforcement specialist, said that once these operations are fully protected from rainfall, runoff should become much cleaner and compliance should be forthcoming.
The settlement released this week notes 11 violations since 2000, including failure to submit toxicity reports on time. On several occasions, the company exceeded discharge limits for ammonia, phosphorus and pH, which indicates acidity.
The State Water Control Board will consider approving the settlement at its next meeting in September.
Reach Scott Harper at 446-2340 or sharper (AT) pilotonline.com
Publication date: 2002-08-03
© 2002, YellowBrix, Inc.
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