The Louisville Air Pollution Control Board voted today to approve a settlement between the city and DuPont for permit violations at the company’s Rubbertown plant. The board order fines the company $51,000.
The Air Pollution Control District says DuPont’s facility on Camp Ground Road routinely failed to complete required inspections of its equipment. Enforcement and Compliance Manager Terri Phelps says the company’s air pollution permit requires it to submit periodic reports detailing its inspections.
“There were no excess emissions that we’re aware of,” she said. “However, they are required to monitor periodically some of their equipment weekly, some monthly, for leaks, for example and they weren’t doing that. We consider that serious. They’re violations of federal regulations and their own permit with us.”
Phelps says these kinds of reports are necessary as the district monitors whether the company is complying with the permit.
“Sometimes we would know,” she said. “We do go on inspections of these facilities and sometimes we can look at their logs and tell whether they’re properly reporting and whether their equipment is running properly. But there are some that we wouldn’t know about if they didn’t report to us.”
The district found instances of missing inspections dating back to 2006; the length of time the problem continued is one reason why the penalty is so high.
