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BEI Hawaii will pay a $127,209 civil penalty as part of a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for alleged violations of the federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act and Clean Air Act at its Hilo and Honolulu facilities, the federal agency announced Thursday.
The company distributes agricultural and industrial chemicals, fertilizer and specialty products to farms, golf courses, pest control businesses, water treatment operators, utilities and food processing plants.
In September 2016 a release of liquefied chlorine gas under pressure occurred at the Hilo facility. BEI employees failed to wear the required protective personal equipment in investigating the leak Sept. 22 and when handling a leaking cylinder the following day, violating the directions on the EPA-approved label and federal laws, the agency said.
The Clean Air Act requires development and implementation of risk management plans to address risks from accidental releases of regulated toxic substances, including chlorine, and BEI failed to develop and implement such a plan and also failed to train employees in responding to an accidental release at the Hilo facility, according to the EPA.
The EPA and the state Department of Agriculture conducted follow-up compliance inspections and reviews of BEI’s Hilo and Honolulu facilities and identified four additional FIFRA violations at the Honolulu facility, the release said. Two occurred in 2018 when tank trucks refilled bulk storage tanks containing pesticides without leaving copies of the pesticide labels with customers or attaching copies of the labels on the tanks. Two additional violations involved improper storage of insecticides in November.
