A Scranton-based company was recently fined by an arm of the federal government.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently reported that Scranton Manufacturing had violated its handling and protocols concerning hazardous waste. According to the EPA, they found Scranton Manufacturing had failed to meet requirements of a facility that qualified as a “large quantity generator” of hazardous waste. They also failed to prepare a contingency plan for emergencies, make arrangements with emergency responders in the event hazardous waste is released, and failed to complete staff training requirements concerning hazardous waste.
Scranton Manufacturing Director of Operations Jim Ober says they recycle some of the waste in house in their painting department as a solvent to clear their paint lines, as well as a contracted third party picks up additional waste and recycles that as fuel for different things.
“It’s not like we’re dumping this out back and burying it in barrels, or disposing improperly. We’ve always been disposing properly. But what happened to us, the amount of disposal went up.”
Ober tells Raccoon Valley Radio the reasons why there was an increase in the amount of waste that caused them to not have the proper permits in place.
“Again, with the growth of the company, the amount we use has risen, and the combined when we had the fire last year, part of the damage included taking out the equipment and the space that we were doing that recycling in. So as we were kind of caught up in the ‘Let’s get this up and running, let’s get people back to work,’ we lost sight.”
Because of the violations the EPA found, Scranton Manufacturing agreed to pay a civil penalty of $50,208 to resolve those issues with the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.