Two Connecticut companies, a scrap metal recycling facility and a waste oil transporter, agreed to pay fines to settle claims by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that they violated federal laws regarding toxic substances in their handling of PCBs.
In addition, as part of the settlements one company will clean up PCB contamination and the other has voluntarily changed operations to reduce the chance of contaminating waste oil shipments with PCBs.
G&S, a scrap metal recycling facility in South Windsor, will clean up an on-site lagoon that became polluted with toxic chemicals, and paid a penalty of $22,500, settling EPA claims that it violated the federal Toxic Substances Control Act.
No company officials were available for comment, according to an employee who answered the phone.
Connecticut Oil Recycling Services in Middletown, a waste oil transporter and recycler, paid $20,000 to settle an EPA claim that it failed to properly prepare a hazardous waste manifest for waste containing PCBs when transporting it. A company spokesperson declined to comment.
G&S, located at 444 Nutmeg Road North in South Windsor, buys and consolidates scrap metals, which it sorts inside the building or on concrete pads to reduce the chance of soil contamination. A system of oil/water separators and retention ponds are designed to capture any contaminants.
The federal Clean Water Act permit issued to G&S requires the company to periodically sample discharges for PCBs. G&S conducted the required sampling and detected no PCBs in 2012 or 2013. In 2014, however sampling found PCBs in surface water and sediments. On discovering this, G&S started a cleanup and has submitted a cleanup plan to deal with the remaining contamination.
Connecticut Oil Recycling Services, at 27 Mill Street in Middletown, picked up waste from a customer and transported it to an oil processing facility in New Haven for disposal or recycling. Neither the company nor its customers who provided the oil did sampling for PCB contamination.
In April 2015, the facility found PCB contamination in its storage tank, which was traced back to a shipment made by Connecticut Oil Recycling Services. EPA alleged the company failed to properly prepare a hazardous waste manifest for waste containing PCBs in a shipment on April 13, 2015.
By adding PCB-contaminated waste oil to its tanker truck, combining it with waste oil collected from other customers, and then adding it to a tank disposed of at the oil processing facility, the actions led to the PCB contamination of about 15,000 gallons of waste oil, according to the EPA.
