Roquette fined $4.1m for water pollution
pharmafile | November 20, 2012 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â DoJ, EPA, RoquetteÂ
The US unit of French ingredients producer Roquette Freres has been fined $4.1m for failing to control the discharge of waste water from its processing facility in Keokuk, Iowa.
Roquette America agreed to the civil settlement in the case brought by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and also committed to spending $17 million to upgrade its waste treatment facilities.
The Keokuk plant is used to refine corn and other crop products into sweeteners, starches and other ingredients used by the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries.
“As early as 2008, Roquette was aware that its waste water treatment plant was marginally adequate and that it could not handle spills or surges in loading,” said the DoJ in a statement on the settlement.
“Instead of constructing additional containment structures for waste water surges, or routing spills to the waste water treatment plant, Roquette allowed the industrial waste to be discharged directly into the Mississippi River and Soap Creek,” it added.
This is not the first time that Roquette has fallen foul of US anti-pollution laws. In 2010, the company was fined $1 million for excessive emissions of sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and particulate matter at an animal feed unit at Keokuk, while a similar offence in 2005 resulted in a $500,000 fine.
The EPA notes that The Keokuk facility violated its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit more than 1,000 times, and on at least 30 occasions illegally discharged via storm drains resulting in at least 250,000 gallons of industrial waste being released into the waterways.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has issued three administrative orders and eight notices of violation to Roquette since 2000, but the company “continued to overload its waste water treatment plant and failed to address the deficiencies at other portions of its facility”.
A consent decree requires Roquette to modify the plant’s sewerage system, upgrade the wastewater treatment plant and carry out effluent monitoring, along with annual third-party audits of its compliance with the programme.
Phil Taylor
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