AUTO DISMANTLER TO PAY $400,000 FEE.Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer Environmental regulators today will announce a $400,000 settlement with an auto dismantler charged with violating pollution rules, a move they hope will encourage recyclers across the region to clean up their operations. Considering them among the most serious water polluters, regulators have begun a crack-down on hundreds of auto dismantlers. ``There are plenty of licensed and unlicensed auto dismantlers, and they've been kind of thumbing their noses at us,'' said Lynn Kuo, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), independent agency of the U.S. government, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1970 to reduce and control air and water pollution, noise pollution, and radiation and to ensure the safe handling and environmental engineer who has inspected dismantlers. Pick Your Part Auto Wrecking will pay a $165,000 fine and implement a project valued at $235,000 to remove toxic mercury switches A mercury switch is a switch whose purpose is to allow or interrupt the flow of electric current in an electrical circuit in a manner that is dependent on the switch's physical position or alignment relative to the direction of the "pull" of earth's gravity. from vehicles before they are scrapped, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the settlement. The fine was reduced because the company made great strides in cleaning up its yards. Beginning in 1999, EPA EPA eicosapentaenoic acid. EPA abbr. eicosapentaenoic acid EPA, n.pr See acid, eicosapentaenoic. EPA, n. inspectors discovered storm water violations at Pick Your Part yards, ranging from draining polluted pol·lute tr.v. pol·lut·ed, pol·lut·ing, pol·lutes 1. To make unfit for or harmful to living things, especially by the addition of waste matter. See Synonyms at contaminate. 2. runoff Runoff The procedure of printing the end-of-day prices for every stock on an exchange onto ticker tape. Notes: If the "tape is late" then it can take a long time to print off all the closing prices. into wetlands to failing to cover equipment during rain storms. Rain can pick up heavy metals heavy metals, n.pl metallic compounds, such as aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, and nickel. Exposure to these metals has been linked to immune, kidney, and neurotic disorders. , oil and chemicals on scrapped cars and carry the contaminants into nearby storm drains and rivers and eventually to the ocean. Tests of storm water in Sun Valley have shown alarming levels of pollution. Facing a crackdown from the EPA and local regulators, the state Auto Dismantlers Association has begun storm water protection training and inspections at its members' yards. However, some dismantlers quit the industry group rather than take part in the self-imposed clean-up. ``The industry knows the environmental community has some serious concerns about how they are processing end-of-life vehicles,'' said Martha Bucknell, with the dismantlers association. ``We've got a really good alternative.'' Kerry Cavanaugh, (818) 713-3746 kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com |
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