NEW YORK — The EPA said Pan Chemical Corp., a coatings and ink manufacturer based in Hawthorne, NJ, has agreed to make $70,000 in operational improvements as the result of the company’s voluntary disclosure of environmental violations.
The violations were disclosed under the EPA’s audit policy, which offers potentially significant penalty reductions to companies that voluntarily disclose such infractions. The EPA said Pan Chemical had for several years “failed to tell EPA about certain chemicals used at its facility.”
In the settlement, Pan Chemical will pay a cash penalty of $17,996 and make $70,000 in improvements to its facility that will result in a 90% reduction in the amount of certain hazardous wastes currently disposed of by the company. In September 1998, Pan Chemical told the EPA it had not filed Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) forms for methyl ethyl ketone, toluene, xylene, methyl isobutyl ketone and butanol for 1995, 1996, and 1997, and that it had not filed a form for lead compounds for 1997. By Oct. 1, 2000, Pan Chemical will install a solvent-recovery system that will enable it to re-use 90% of the 25,000 pounds of waste solvents it produces annually, the EPA said. The company must demonstrate to the EPA that the new system is up and running by Nov. 1.
