Heritage Crystal-Clean recently settled on $50,000 of Indiana state fines after routine inspections uncovered waste management violations.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management issued a civil penalty to the Elgin, Ill.-headquartered waste management company after detecting several instances of improper waste handling in 2011 and 2012. In Indiana legal documents, IDEM cited inaccurate labeling of hazardous material and spillage of waste, along with inaccurate manifests and out-of-date information in a contingency and response plan.
Greg Ray, the companys COO, pointed out to Lube Report that the settlement does not establish admission of any of the alleged violations, but noted that instead of prolonging litigation, the company has decided to accept the terms of the order, fix things, move forward, and improve.
Ray said that HCC cleaned up all spills immediately, and has submitted all documents required by the order, including a revised contingency and response plan. He pointed out that IDEM will designate $10,000 of the civil penalty to the Environmental Management Special Fund, while $40,000 of the disbursement will be used to fund a supplemental environmental project intended to help restore a brownfield site in Indianapolis.
While the majority of the alleged violations relate to HCCs distribution and warehousing activities at their Indianapolis, Indiana site,Ray emphasized the distinction between this and the companys used oil rerefinery in the same location,and noted that the order will not result in any downtime at that facility, which began producing Group II base oil in 2012.
The rerefinery received $3 million in incentives from state officials and the city of Indianapolis in 2010 to build the $40 million facility – $2.3 million of which was property tax abatement, Ray said, noting that the company is proud to have created 75 new jobs as a result of the project.
HCCs board of directors recently approved a planned expansion of the rerefinery which will increase its annual production capacity to 75 million gallons per year by mid-2014, according to the companys May 2 quarterly earnings press release.