EPA Orders 4 Companies to Pay Fines Over Faulty Waste Data

Four Orange County firms have been ordered to pay fines for allegedly withholding information about their production of hazardous wastes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday.

EPA officials say Air Industries Co. of Garden Grove, Cirtech Inc. of Orange, Power Circuits Inc. of Santa Ana and Pro-Tech of Fountain Valley failed to report biennially how much waste they generated and what they were doing to minimize the volume.

The EPA is seeking $11,400 fines apiece from Air Industries, Cirtech and Power Circuits, and a $9,500 fine from Pro-Tech. The companies and the EPA will negotiate over those proposed fines.

Companies are required by federal law to report to the EPA biennially if they exceed 2,200 pounds of hazardous waste per month. Each of those companies had reported that they were below that threshold, but an investigation revealed that was not the case, EPA officials said.

EPA officials say they take such violations seriously, because without truthful reporting they cannot tell how much disposal capacity the states need and what industries are doing to reduce waste.

“We rely on self-reporting by companies to provide data for managing hazardous waste, and we depend on their integrity. If companies break the law and violate this integrity, we won’t tolerate it, and they will be penalized,” said Jeff Zelikson, EPA’s regional director of hazardous waste management.