The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced its National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives for 2024-2027. The list includes first-time initiatives to mitigate exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). EPA said that it also will integrate environmental justice considerations into each of its National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives. In addition to climate change, PFAS contamination, and coal ash initiatives, EPA is modifying its Clean Air Act initiative to focus on hazardous air pollution in overburdened communities in each EPA region and is continuing its drinking water and chemical accident prevention initiatives that began under prior administrations.
Arctic Glacier U.S.A. has agreed to a settlement with EPA over claims that the company violated federal environmental rules at its Fremont ice processing plant. The company will pay a $169,400 penalty as part of the settlement. Based on an inspection of the facility in 2018, EPA determined that the facility’s piping, operating equipment, and safety systems were not in compliance with regulatory requirements. The company has since addressed the issues at the facility. Arctic Glacier uses anhydrous ammonia, a toxic substance, as a refrigerant.
Zeaborn Ship Management agreed to pay $2 million in penalties after discarding oily bilge water into the ocean, federal prosecutors announced on Monday. The company, based in Germany and Singapore, admitted to dumping more than 7,500 gallons of bilge water off the Southern California coast from one of its vessels at least four times between June and October 2022, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Prosecutors alleged that the contaminated material had not been processed through required pollution prevention equipment and was falsely recorded as having been properly and safely processed. As part of the agreement, Zeaborn pleaded guilty to two felony violations of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships.
Sewage treatment plants — the largest sources of nutrient pollution and algae blooms in the San Francisco Bay — may soon become subject to first-ever restrictions on the release of the nutrients, such as nitrogen, into the Bay. About 14 of the Bay Area’s treatment plants have already modernized their facilities to clean up their sludge, harnessing bacteria and aeration techniques to turn nitrogen from a liquid to a gas, then safely releasing it into the air. Several more have planned upgrades, and are studying treatment wetlands. The high costs of a thorough cleanup will be likely be borne by ratepayers.
Two months after an EPA expert advisory panel recommended adoption of more stringent standards for ground-level ozone, the agency’s administrator, Michael Regan, said he was instead launching a fresh assessment of the standards that will likely take years to complete. Ozone, a toxic gas and the main ingredient in smog, is tied to asthma attacks in children and worsened breathing ability in adults with emphysema and other chronic respiratory diseases. It is created in the atmosphere by the reaction in sunlight of hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxides, both of which are emitted in the production or consumption of fossil fuels. Any tightening of EPA’s air quality standards can therefore ripple across a broad swath of the economy.
The Biden administration on Tuesday finalized tighter rules for complex devices meant to prevent catastrophic blowouts on offshore oil and gas drilling rigs, reversing certain Trump administration policies and returning to a more stringent regulatory stance adopted after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. The new rules from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement address conditions and well pressures under which the automatic well control devices operate.
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