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EPA Settles Toxic Release Reporting Violations With Humboldt Creamery

Release Date: 7/15/2003
Contact Information: Leo Kay, Press Office, 415/947-4306

     SAN FRANCISCO -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently reached a settlement with Humboldt Creamery in Fortuna, Calif. that requires the company to pay $5,000 for allegedly failing to accurately report its amount of toxic chemicals, a violation of federal community right-to- know law.

     As part of the settlement, a company representative will attend an EPA workshop on compliance with toxic release reporting requirements.

    The EPA cited Humboldt Creamery Association, Inc., at 572 Highway 1 for allegedly over-reporting the amount of nitric acid used at its plant in 1999 and 2000. The facility uses nitric acid to clean equipment used at the facility to produce powdered milk and ice cream.

     The Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act requires certain facilities using chemicals over certain amounts to file annual reports of chemical releases with the EPA and the state. The reports estimate the amounts of each toxic chemical released to the environment, treated or recycled on-site, or transferred off-site for waste management.  Information is then compiled into a national database and made available to the public.  

     "Our toxics database is only as good as the information we receive from the facilities," said Enrique Manzanilla, the EPA's Cross Media Division director for the Pacific Southwest. "Thanks to this settlement, we should now have a more accurate picture of the type and amount of pollutants emitted from Humboldt Creamery in the future."

     EPA inspectors discovered the alleged violations during a routine inspection in 2002.

     Each year the EPA publishes a report entitled the Toxic Release Inventory Public Data Release, which summarizes the prior years submissions and provides detailed trend analysis of toxic chemical releases.    For more information on the program, call (800) 424-9346 or visit: https://www.epa.gov/opptinitr/tri.  The U.S. EPA's environmental databases, including TRI data, can be accessed at: https://www.epa.gov/enviro.