EPA Releases Compliance Guides for New PCE Rule

Two guides published recently by EPA are intended to help workplaces comply with the agency’s new risk management rule for the solvent perchloroethylene (PCE), which became effective Jan. 17. The compliance guides are specific to dry cleaning and energized electrical cleaners, two examples of entities that may continue using PCE for some time under the new rule. The rule requires most uses of PCE to be phased out in less than three years but allows for a 10-year phaseout for PCE’s uses in dry cleaning to allow small businesses time to transition away from the chemical. The use of PCE to clean and degrease energized electrical equipment will be allowed to continue “since there are no technical or economically feasible alternatives,” EPA says.

 

The compliance guide for dry cleaning (PDF) outlines the agency’s recordkeeping requirements for dry cleaners, compliance dates for already owned machines, and information to help businesses identify dry-cleaning machines that use PCE. The dry cleaning compliance guide is also available in Korean and Spanish. The new compliance guide for the continued use of PCE in energized electrical cleaning (PDF) outlines workplace requirements, including a new inhalation exposure concentration limit, direct dermal contact controls, and other exposure controls. Additional topics discussed in the guide for energized electrical cleaning include requirements for downstream notification and labeling and self-certification requirements for owners and operators to attest that they are complying with the relevant provisions of the rule.

 

The PCE rule was published in the Federal Register in December. For more information, or to download the compliance guides, visit EPA’s risk management webpage on PCE.

 

 

The EPA and the Department of Justice announced a settlement agreement with Stericycle, Inc. for systemic, nationwide violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and related regulations in the operation of its former hazardous waste management business from May 5, 2014, through April 6, 2020. This settlement resolves Stericycle’s failures to properly manage hazardous waste, accurately maintain required manifest records when transporting hazardous waste, and timely submit information for thousands of manifests to EPA’s electronic manifest database, the e-Manifest system.

 

The proposed stipulation and order of settlement agreed to by Stericycle requires payment of a $9.5 million civil penalty, one of the largest civil penalties ever paid for RCRA violations. The settlement is subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

 

“Stericycle repeatedly failed to ensure the proper transport, management, and storage of hazardous waste – a job that they were paid to do and entrusted to perform on behalf of customers nationwide,” said Acting Assistant Administrator Cecil Rodrigues for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “EPA is committed to ensuring companies comply with the law and to protecting communities from the potential risks associated with the mismanagement of hazardous wastes.”

 

“Today, we hold Stericycle responsible for flouting hazardous waste management requirements while operating a nationwide hazardous waste business and risking significant potential harm to human health and the environment,” said Attorney for the United States Matthew Podolsky of the Southern District of New York. “This penalty should put other waste management firms on notice that we will hold them accountable when they shirk their legal responsibilities and put the public and environment in harm’s way.”

 

Stericycle is a waste management company that operated a nationwide hazardous waste transportation, storage, treatment and disposal business until it sold the vast majority of the business on April 6, 2020. Stericycle operated 13 RCRA-permitted hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs) and 44 waste transfer facilities. On April 6, 2020, Stericycle completed the sale of its “Stericycle Environmental Solutions” hazardous waste business and, since that date, has largely ceased managing hazardous waste in the United States. However, Stericycle remains accountable for its systemic RCRA violations prior to that sale.

 

Between May 5, 2014, and the date of sale, Stericycle routinely violated RCRA requirements related to tracking and transportation of hazardous waste, as alleged in detail in the complaint. Stericycle routinely lost track of hazardous waste while transporting it, sent hazardous waste to disposal facilities that were not the ones its customers had chosen, or delivered hazardous waste shipments without the required manifests. Stericycle also failed to comply with requirements for resolving and reporting discrepancies between hazardous waste identified on a shipping manifest and the hazardous waste received by Stericycle at its facilities for disposal, and it failed to timely return signed manifests to generators and timely submit them electronically to the EPA. Stericycle also violated RCRA by storing hazardous waste in transfer facilities when not authorized to do so, either because the storage period was longer than the 10 days permitted by RCRA regulations or because overall transportation times for the hazardous waste shipment exceeded those constituting “the normal course of transportation” under RCRA regulations. All of this conduct violated RCRA hazardous waste regulations critical to preventing substantial risks to human health and the environment.

 

The hazardous waste manifest is the key to tracking who generated the waste, the kind of waste being shipped and any potential dangers the hazardous characteristics of the waste pose and where and how the waste is disposed. This information is critical for ensuring that hazardous waste is handled properly and safely, and in the case of an emergency, giving first responders the information needed to handle leaks or spills that may occur during transport or in the event of an accident.

 

The EPA’s e-Manifest system is the database for all hazardous waste shipments in the United States that are generated, transported and disposed of in the United States. The system’s requirements ensure that our nation’s hazardous waste data is transparent, easily accessible, and publicly available. Complete and on-time submissions to the e-Manifest system by companies like Stericycle are required by RCRA and essential to maintaining awareness of the hazardous waste activities in our communities and on our highways and rail systems.

 

The U.S. Department of Labor announced changes to OSHA civil penalty amounts based on inflation for 2025.

 

In 2015, Congress passed the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act to advance the effectiveness of civil monetary penalties and to maintain their deterrent effect. Under the Act, agencies are required to publish "catch-up" rules that adjust the level of civil monetary penalties and make subsequent annual adjustments for inflation no later than January 15 of each year.

 

On Jan. 15, 2025, the maximum OSHA penalties for serious and other-than-serious violations will increase from $16,131 to $16,550 per violation. The maximum penalty for willful or repeated violations will increase from $161,323 to $165,514 per violation.

 

For additional details, visit OSHA's Penalties page and read the final rule for more information.

 

 

The EPA recently announced that Tyree Oil, an Oregon-based petroleum distribution and storage company, has paid an $87,700 Clean Water Act penalty for systemic failures to adequately maintain its Portland facility and to maintain and implement an adequate plan to prevent or respond to possible releases of oil at the facility, which closed in early 2024.

 

During an inspection in October 2021 EPA inspectors found extensive violations of the Clean Water Act’s Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure regulations which require facilities like Tyree Oil to prepare and implement a plan to protect local waterways and shorelines from the discharge of oil. The facility’s sewer lines were connected to the City of Portland’s stormwater system which eventually discharges into the Columbia River.

 

The EPA inspectors found that the facility’s SPCC plan was inadequate and that the company failed to implement important parts of the plan that could prevent releases of oil. The agency cited the company for 13 counts of violating the Clean Water Act, among them:

 

At the time of the inspection, EPA apprised Tyree representatives of the deficiencies in the facility’s SPCC plan and its implementation.  In June 2022 Tyree updated its SPCC plan to address comments made by EPA during the inspection.

 

 

A U.S. Department of Labor investigation has found that a drainpipe cleaning and maintenance company could have prevented an explosion at a Port Saint Lucie worksite in June 2024 that claimed a 24-year-old worker's life, by implementing proper safety measures to address the hazards of inflatable pipe plugs.

 

An investigation by OSHA revealed that on June 8, 2024, two employees of Southeast Services of the Treasure Coast, Inc. were cleaning a drainpipe at the intersection of Southwest Becker Road and Southwest Village Parkway. During the process, the pipe's pressurized plug became over-inflated, causing an explosion so powerful that it ejected one worker 15 feet from the storm drain, resulting in fatal injuries.

 

OSHA cited the Vero Beach-based employer for a serious violation for failing to develop and implement procedures and train workers on how to install and remove pneumatic pipe plugs safely. This failure put workers at risk of being struck by dangerous equipment.

 

"Pressurized equipment poses significant danger, and employers must put safeguards in place and take all necessary precautions to protect workers from these hazards," said OSHA Area Director Condell Eastmond in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. "If employers ignore critical safety measures, the consequences can be devastating, leaving an unfillable void in the lives of the families impacted by such tragedies."

 

OSHA has assessed the employer $16,131 in proposed penalties.

 

Southeast Services of the Treasure Coast, Inc. is an underground utility company that specializes in the maintenance of sanitary sewer and storm water. The company employs approximately 30 workers and serves the east coast of Florida, including Brevard, Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties.

 

The company has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

 

 

The EPA, Department of Justice, and the New Mexico Environment Department announced a proposed settlement with HF Sinclair Navajo Refining LLC, an HF Sinclair Corp. subsidiary, resolving alleged Clean Air Act and New Mexico Air Quality Control Act violations at the company’s oil refinery operations in Artesia, NM.

 

Under the settlement, HF Sinclair Navajo must pay a civil penalty of $35 million, owed in equal shares to the United States and the state of New Mexico. The company must implement compliance measures at an estimated cost of $137 million, including significant capital investments, to reduce emissions at its refinery. Including reductions already achieved in response to EPA’s investigations, the compliance measures are projected to achieve reductions of:

 

These emission reductions have a related climate benefit of reducing 97,551 tons per year of carbon dioxide emission equivalence.

 

HF Sinclair Navajo also must operate 10 real-time air pollution monitors along the refinery fence line and one real-time air pollution monitor and six other passive monitors in the town of Artesia to measure refinery air pollution emissions and make the results available on a public website.

 

The refinery is adjacent to a community overburdened by pollution. This settlement is part of the EPA and Justice Department’s ongoing commitment to address unlawful pollution in historically marginalized and disproportionally impacted communities.

 

“HF Sinclair Navajo’s failure to monitor and control the release of benzene, a known carcinogen, and other hazardous and toxic air pollutants posed a significant threat and potential health risks to the nearby community,” said Acting Assistant Administrator Cecil Rodriguez of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “The monitoring required by today’s settlement will ensure that the community and state and federal regulators will have real-time emissions data to help ensure the community is protected against future health impacts from the refinery’s operations.”

 

“This settlement reinforces the United States’ commitment to protect communities from illegal refinery benzene and VOC emissions,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Katherine E. Konschnik of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). “Under the settlement, the refinery will make significant capital investments in pollution controls and implement additional programs to improve air quality and reduce health impacts on the residents of Artesia, including the students at Roselawn Elementary School.”

 

“The fenceline community in Artesia has lived with the burden of benzene and VOC emissions for many years. This settlement is an overdue step in bringing them some relief from the potential health effects of these pollutants,” said EPA Regional Administrator Dr. Earthea Nance. “The Roselawn Elementary School, just hundreds of feet away from the HF Sinclair refinery, is a reminder of how critical our rulemaking and enforcement efforts are to protecting the health and environment of impacted citizens.”

 

“Today’s settlement continues to hammer home that if you don’t follow through on your commitments to clean air by following our rules, permits, or prior settlement agreements, you will pay for it in fines,” said Secretary James Kenney of NMED. “Today’s action not only obtains civil penalties — it forces the Artesia Refinery to invest in a number of projects to benefit our state, including improving controls for cancer-causing benzene emissions and other pollutants that infringe on New Mexicans’ right to breathe clean air.”

 

HF Sinclair Navajo has agreed to take the necessary measures to address the refinery’s failure to comply with regulations that govern a wide range of refinery equipment and operations, including flaring, fenceline monitoring of benzene emissions, wastewater, storage vessels, leak detection and repair, and heat exchanger leaks.

 

These failures are alleged in the United States’ complaint, filed simultaneously with the settlement, and resulted in the release of hazardous air pollutants and VOCs directly into the air. The company will address these failures by:

 

In 2018 and 2019, monitoring at the refinery recorded the highest refinery fenceline benzene concentrations in the country. Under the settlement HF Sinclair Navajo agreed to operate and maintain air pollution monitors at the facility fenceline and in the community at an estimated cost of $1.8 million. The monitoring will help ensure compliance with Clean Air Act’s regulations, and help the company identify and address potentially harmful emission sources more quickly. Additionally, the fenceline and community monitoring will help regulators and the community hold HF Sinclair Navajo accountable for harmful air pollutants entering the community.

 

Benzene is known to cause cancer in humans and is associated with short-term and long-term inhalation exposure risks. VOCs, along with nitrous oxide, play a major role in the atmospheric reactions that produce ozone, which is the primary constituent of smog. Ground-level ozone exposure is linked to a variety of short- and long-term health problems.

 

HF Sinclair Corp. is a publicly traded energy company headquartered in Dallas, TX. The Artesia refinery serves markets in the southwestern United States and has a crude oil capacity of 100,000 barrels per day.

 

 

Manufacturing Company to Correct Violations of Clean Air Act Under EPA Order   

NIOSH Investigates Largest Documented Blastomycosis Outbreak in the U.S.

Cal/OSHA Urges Employers to Protect Workers from Unhealthy Air