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The Arkansas Department of Energy & Environment – Division of Environmental Quality (“DEQ”) and Poco Graphite, Inc. (“PGI”) entered into a June 13th Consent Administrative Order (“CAO”) addressing an alleged violation of an air permit. See LIS No. 23-044.
The CAO states that PGI owns and operates and industrial facility (“Facility”) in Russellville, Arkansas.
The Facility is stated to be operated pursuant to an air permit.
DEQ personnel are stated to have conducted a compliance inspection of the Facility on February 14th. The inspection is stated to have covered the reporting period of May 2021 through February 2023.
The inspection is stated to have determined that PGI failed to maintain the temperature records for the graphitizing furnaces for at least five years. PGI provided that its computer system only maintains records for six months and then deletes the records.
As a result, the CAO provides that PGI failed to maintain the records from May 2021 through August 24, 2022. This is alleged to constitute a violation of General Provision 6 of Air Permit R11 and Air Permit R12.
PCI stated in correspondence dated February 24th that the monthly records would be exported and saved in a master database file which would be kept for five years starting from August 25, 2022. In addition, the Facility provided a spreadsheet that contained required temperature record information dating back to August 25, 2022.
The CAO provides that PGI neither admits nor denies the factual and legal allegations contained in the CAO.
The CAO requires that to demonstrate compliance with General Provision 6 of the Air Permit, the Facility shall submit the records required by Specific 28 of the Permit. Such records shall be submitted for three consecutive months beginning with the month following the effective date of the CAO. The CAO requires that the records include the records for SN-08A from August 25, 2022, through the current month.
A civil penalty of $5,760 is assessed.
A copy of the CAO can be downloaded here.
