Media Contact: Michael Rafferty
(651) 297-8294
Technical Contact: Joe Henderson
(651) 297-8496
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

St. Paul. MN – July 27, 2004
Safety-Kleen Systems Inc. paid a $49,000 penalty this month for hazardous waste violations that included shipment of waste petroleum fuel without proper documentation and storage of hazardous waste without a permit. The company also failed to send copies of manifests (in 2001) to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) in a timely manner. Safety-Kleen is located at 3227 Terminal Dr. in Eagan.

In addition to paying the penalty, Safety-Kleen was also required to take steps to ensure similar violations do not occur in the future. This included retraining all sales representatives and drivers about the requirements for accepting used oil and conducting an audit to make sure employees comply with screening requirements used to determine waste types before transport.

Finally, the company was required to submit procedures to the MPCA that ensure manifest discrepancies are handled properly and copies of the manifests are sent to the MPCA promptly.

All violations identified by the MPCA have been corrected by the company.

Levying penalties and fines is one of the MPCA’s many tools used to encourage compliance with environmental laws. When calculating penalties, the MPCA takes into account how seriously the violation affected the environment, whether it is a first time or repeat violation and how promptly the violation was reported to appropriate authorities. It also attempts to recover the calculated economic benefit gained by failure to comply with environmental laws in a timely manner.