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Mississippi River Pollution Costs Alcoa $8.8 Million

WASHINGTON, DC, March 14, 2000 (ENS) - Alcoa Inc., one of the worlds largest aluminum producers, has agreed to pay $8.8 million as part of a settlement of claims against the company for polluting the Mississippi River Basin. The agreement, which also requires Alcoa to reduce its output of hazardous waste, is part of ongoing federal efforts to clean up the Mississippi and its tributaries.

Steve Hanna, an Alcoa worker in Davenport, Iowa, inspects a sample of aluminum sheeting for surface quality (All photos courtesy Alcoa) Under the terms of the settlement, Alcoa will pay a $2.4 million penalty, spend at least $5.4 million to reduce hazardous waste generation, and conduct a $1 million study of a new air pollution reduction technology. Alcoa must also treat wastewater from its Warrick County, Indiana, plant with a new $5 million wastewater treatment system.

The settlement, announced Monday by the Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), answers allegations that Pittsburgh based Alcoa violated multiple requirements of its Clean Water Act permit regulating discharges from the companys Warrick facility into the Ohio River, which feeds the Mississippi River.

"The Mighty Mississippi is part of our natural heritage, and we have a responsibility to restore and protect it," said Lois Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General for Environment and Natural Resources at the Justice Department. "This settlement significantly reduces the amount of pollution that enters the Ohio River, one of the Mississippis major tributaries, and should serve as a warning to others who would illegally pollute one of our nations greatest treasures."

The EPA said Alcoa illegally discharged inadequately treated wastewater to the Ohio River from 1994 until 1999. Company sponsored tests showed that the mixture of pollutants in the wastewater was toxic to fish and invertebrates. Alcoa also exceeded Clean Air Act limits for opacity - the amount of light obscured by particulate pollutants such as smoke, dust and ash - from six aluminum casting complex furnaces at the plant, the EPA alleged.

Alcoa makes aluminum cans used by many familiar beverage companies "Cases like this demonstrate that illegal air and water pollution continues to threaten the quality of our environment, despite the progress weve made since passage of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act in the 1970s," said EPA Midwest Regional Administrator Francis Lyons. "Toxic discharges pose an especially grave risk to our Midwestern waters, one of our regions greatest resources."

The settlement requires fundamental changes in the way Alcoa operates its Warrick County facility, where the company makes sheet aluminum used in food and beverage containers. The plants toxic wastewater will be neutralized by a new two step treatment system before it is discharged to the Ohio River. EPA may also require Alcoa to make other plant improvements as needed to ensure the plants future compliance with the Clean Water Act, the settlement notes.

"These issues are very technically complex and required considerable time to identify the source of the problem, then develop a solution," said Alcoa plant manager Mel Lager in a statement. "Nevertheless, we take this situation very seriously, are currently meeting the terms of the agreement and will continue to do so in the future," he added.

Alcoa also makes aluminum parts for cars, like these Mercedez Benz wheels As part of a special hazardous waste reduction project, the plant must change its metal treatment processes to reduce the generation of chromium containing wastewater treatment sludge by 30 percent before June 2001, and by 65 percent by June 2003. Alcoa must also test an alternate metal purification process to determine if it can eliminate the dense smoke emitted by its current process.

The enforcement action against Alcoa is part of the Mississippi River Initiative, a coordinated effort to stop pollution of the River announced in September 1998 by EPA Administrator Carol Browner and Attorney General Janet Reno. Since then, criminal cases and investigations involving the Mississippi River Basin have been opened or concluded in 19 federal districts, and civil enforcement cases have started or been successfully concluded in 16 federal districts. Active investigations are ongoing in other districts as well.

A notice of the settlement will be published in the Federal Register this week. The settlement must still be approved by a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Indiana.

) Environment News Service (ENS) 2000. All Rights Reserved.

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), March 14, 2000