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The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (“LDEQ”) and Sunbelt Innovative Plastics, LLC (“Sunbelt”) entered into a Settlement Agreement (“Settlement”) addressing alleged violations relating to the discharge of plastic resin pellets into a receiving ditch. See Docket No. 2019-13408-DEQ.
Sunbelt is described as owning and/or operating a plastics extrusion and manufacturing facility (“Facility”) in Slidell, Louisiana.
LDEQ previously issued to Sunbelt a Penalty Assessment, Enforcement Tracking No. WE-P-18-00494 on February 26, 2019. The following violations allegedly occurred:
- Caused and/or allowed the discharge of pollutants from a source or location not authorized by the LPDES permit (referencing a June 18, 2020, inspection in which it was observed that Sunbelt caused/allowed the discharge of plastic resin pellets into the receiving ditch at Outfall 0001.
- Failure to submit certain monthly discharge monitoring reports
- Failure to submit progress reports 1 and 2 regarding achievement with final effluent limitations of CB0D5, Ammonia, and Dissolved oxygen at Outfall 201
- Failure to report flow on the monthly discharge monitoring reports for Outfall 001 and Outfall 201 for October and November
- Failure to report exceedances of permit effluent limitations for fecal coliform, BOD5 and TSS at internal Outfall 201
Sunbelt denies it committed any violations or that it is liable for any fines, forfeitures and/or penalties.
The Settlement assesses a penalty of $14,000 of which $2,738.27 represents LDEP’s enforcement costs.
A copy of the Settlement can be downloaded here.
