The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Justice recently announced the lodging of a Consent Decree with North American Chemical Co. under which the US company will pay a …
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Justice recently announced the lodging of a Consent Decree with North American Chemical Co. under which the US company will pay a civil penalty of US$ 320,000 in settlement of alleged emission violations at the company“s mineral processing plant in Trona, California, US. Under the agreement, the company has also made a commitment to spend at least US$ 140,000 to reduce emissions of fine particulate matter known as PM10 by at least 30 tons per year. The company is also required to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by at least 350 tons a year by either installing pollution controls on, or shutting down, a gas-fired turbine. The EPA alleged that the company violated the Clean Air Act by modifying a gas turbine in ways that substantially increased nitrogen oxide emissions, without first securing a permit that would have limited those emissions and in violation of an emission limit for NOx. The EPA also alleged that the facility violated several particulate matter requirements. The chemical plant extracts products such as potash, borax, and soda ash from a brine slurry pumped out from the dry lakebed of Searles Lake. The facility has boilers and a gas turbine that produce steam for the chemical processes, while also generating electricity.