Massachusetts Electroplating Company Fined for Hazardous Waste Violations

(Boston—August 2008) A North Andover electroplating company has paid a $31,328 penalty and is performing three Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs) in a settlement resolving hazardous waste storage violations under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA.

Subsequent to a 2006 inspection, EPA alleged that Central Metal Finishing (CMF) was violating several RCRA regulations, including its failure to inspect its hazardous waste storage areas and train employees with hazardous waste management responsibilities. EPA also alleged several insufficiencies with respect to CMF’s storage and labeling of containers of hazardous waste.

CMF’s metal plating operations generate hazardous wastes such as contaminated sludge and cyanide and chromium-bearing wastes from the facility’s plating baths.

The agreed-upon SEPs entail the replacement of the Facility’s copper cyanide plating process line with a non-cyanide (alkaline) plating process. CMF also will also replace its nitric acid process with a non-nitric acid process used in the Facility’s aluminum plating preparation process line. Finally, CMF will replace its silver cyanide process line with a non-silver (alkaline) plating process. CMF estimates that the SEPs will result in the reduction of 32,680 gallons of hazardous wastewater and will also reduce CMF’s solid cyanide hazardous wastes by 22%. In addition, the SEPs reduce the risk of a release of hazardous wastes to the environment and will also reduce the risk to workers managing process and waste. The costs of these SEPs are estimated to total $125,311.