Safety-Kleen agreed to pay $100,000 to settle charges of transporting waste oil from unregistered facilities during 2010-2012 and submitting inaccurate reports to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, the states attorney general announced May 30.
In a news release, the attorney generals office said that under the terms of the settlement agreement approved in Suffolk Superior Court, Safety-Kleen will pay a civil penalty of $100,000 to the Commonwealth. The company will pay $60,000 within 15 days of the final settlement, and the remaining amount of $40,000 will be suspended, pending its compliance with environmental laws as outlined in the settlement.
Norwell, Mass.-based Clean Harbors is the parent company of Safety-Kleen, which will be required to take additional steps to ensure future compliance with environmental laws regulating transportation of hazardous waste. Based on the fact that the Safety-Kleen violations are related to a time period prior to Clean Harbors owning Safety-Kleen, we would like to decline commenting on those as well as the settlement itself other than to say Safety-Kleen intends to fully comply with the conditions set by the State of Massachusetts going forward, Jim Buckley, Clean Harbors senior vice president for investor relations and corporate communications, told Lube Report.
According to the complaint, between November 2010 and November 2012, MassDEP identified nearly 1,000 alleged instances where Safety-Kleen accepted hazardous waste, particularly waste oil, from facilities that did not have valid identification numbers. The state requires that facilities that generate hazardous waste first receive a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identification number or a valid Massachusetts identification number. The attorney general said licensed hazardous waste transporters such as Safety-Kleen may only accept such waste from facilities that have a valid identification number, and must submit monthly operating reports that include detailed information for each shipment of hazardous waste.
Under this settlement, the company must pay a civil penalty and is also required to take steps to ensure that facilities it accepts waste from are registered, Attorney General Martha Coakley said in a news release.
The steps include prohibiting Safety-Kleens drivers from collecting waste from facilities that are not registered. In addition, the companys drivers will be required to supply any facility that does not have an identification number with registration information and a form. Safety-Kleen is then required to submit the completed forms to MassDEP within five days of receiving them.
The company is also required to provide training to employees and to institute penalties for employees who unlawfully accept hazardous waste from unregistered facilities and report those penalties to MassDEP.
Safety-Kleens East Chicago, Ind., rerefinery has 800 b/d of Group I and 4,200 b/d of Group II capacity. The company also has a rerefinery in Breslau, Canada, with capacities of 700 barrels per day of Group I and 1,200 b/d of Group II.
Clean Harbors completed its $1.3 billion acquisition of Safety-Kleen in December 2012.