MISSISSIPPI
Mississippi Phosphates Corp. plead guilty to discharging 38 million gallons of acidic wastewater into Bayou Casotte in 2013 resulting in the death of 47,000 fish and the closing of the bayou, officials announced today.
The corporation, plead guilty to violating the Clean Water Act, a felony, according to officials. It had been cited before for hundreds of Clean Water violations, officials said.
The corporation is in bankruptcy and obligated to help in the funding the estimated $120 million cleanup of its site will transfer of 320 acres of property near its Pascagoula plant.
The property will become part of the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, which is managed by the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Estuarine Research Reserve System, according to authorities.
The discharge contained pollutants in amounts greatly exceeding corporation’ss permit limits, resulting in the death of the fish and the closing of Bayou Casotte, officials said.
The corporation also admitted that, in February 2014, it discharged oily wastewater from an open gate on a storm water culvert into the bayou, creating an oily sheen that extended approximately one mile down the bayou from the corporation, officials said.
“When operators break the law, they can harm natural resources and communities such as those around Bayou Casotte and neighboring waterways,” Acting Special Agent in Charge said Andy Castro of EPA’s criminal enforcement program in Mississippi.
Adding, “Over the years, state, local and federal governments have spent billions of dollars restoring the delicate Gulf Coast ecosystem. Illegally discharged wastewater compromises that hard work. EPA will continue to work with its law enforcement partners to hold companies fully accountable for their conduct, and to ensure they comply with laws that protect the public and from harm.”
These are the facts in this case, according to federal officials:
- The corporation manufactured diammonium phosphate fertilizers from phosphate rock which it received by ship and rail and from sulphur which was piped to its facility from a neighboring oil refinery.
- In its production of fertilizer, Mississippi Phosphates Corp generated a variety of pollutants and hazardous wastes.
- The corporation has been regulated under a number of environmental statutes that govern the production, storage and release of a variety of air and water pollutants as well as hazardous wastes. In the manufacturing process, strong acids and ammonia were produced.
- If improperly discharged, acids and ammonia can be highly toxic to fish and to other forms of marine life.
The corporation was obligated to comply with permits issued by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality under the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as prescribed by the Clean Water Act.
These permits regulated the storage and discharge of the corporation’s stormwater and wastewater, prescribing the circumstances under which they could be discharged into Bayou Casotte and limiting the concentration and quantity of the pollutants they could contain, according to authorities.
Mississippi Phosphates Corp Had Hundreds of Violations
Since January 2000, the corporation has been cited by Environmental Quality in numerous notices for hundreds of violations of its Clean Water Act permit for discharging wastewater exceeding its pollutant limits.
Corporation was also cited for its failure to maintain adequate wastewater storage capacity, its discharge of untreated wastewater from its sulfuric acid plant directly through the corporation’s main outfall, its combined release of untreated and under treated stormwater and process wastewater from other outfalls, and its failure to implement required remedial measures to prevent the pollutant discharges and environmental harm it has caused for decades.
An April 2005 discharge resulted in the release of more than 17 million gallons of highly acidic wastewater into waterways adjacent to its facility, including Bayou Casotte, Tillman Creek and Bangs Lake of the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, officials said.
These waters are some of the most productive nurseries for aquatic species on the Gulf Coast. Mississippi Phosphates Corp’s massive discharge of pollutants resulted in the death of thousands of fish and other forms of marine life as well as the destruction of marsh grass, trees and shrubs.
In the years following this environmental catastrophe, in spite of Environmental Quality’s orders and the corporation’s remedial proposals, it never implemented the measures necessary to prevent the release of pollutants from its facility and the discharge of an even larger torrent of wastewater destroying even more marine life.