Bunge agrees to clean up
Consent decree also benefits local schools
Staff and Wire reports
Friday, October 27, 2006
The Bunge North America plant in Emporia is one of 11 soybean-processing plants involved in a $13.9 million settlement agreement announced Thursday afternoon by the U.S. Department of Justice. A corn dry mill extraction plant in Danville, Ill., also was involved in the settlement. The plants are owned by Bunge and three of its subsidiaries.
As a result of the settlement, the Emporia plant must make modifications to reduce fumes emitted from a solvent used in processing at the plant, as well as reduce the amount of nitrous oxide that is produced by a burner involved in the drying process.
Bunge also will pay to retrofit diesel school buses in Emporia and Lyon County to reduce harmful emissions. The company also will pay $45,000 for environmental education in Kansas.
The Department of Justice had accused Bunge of violating the Clean Air Act by “constructing major modifications at its plants that increased emissions without obtaining pre-construction permits and without complying with applicable standards of performance for new air pollution sources,” a news release from the government said.
“We have not admitted any wrongdoing,” Bunge spokeswoman Deb Seidel told The Gazette this morning in reference to the consent decree. Seidel said that coming to an agreement on a settlement was in “everybody’s best interest.”
Seidel said that most of the projects to correct the emissions problems already are underway at the plants involved.
“Everything will be completed by the end of 2007,” she said.
In the consent decree, the Environmental Protection Agency credits Bunge for completing more than 20 projects between 2002 and 2004. The projects resulted in a reduction of 1,180 tons per year of volatile organic compound emissions and 76 tons per year of particulate matter emissions, Bunge said in a news release.
The settlement of the suit is expected to eliminate more than 2,200 tons of harmful emissions annually. The emissions contain smog-forming volatile organic compounds, nitrous oxides, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, the release stated.
The emission reduction projects will cost an estimated $12 million. Bunge also will pay a $625,000 civil penalty, which will be divided among the federal government and the eight states involved.
Bunge also will spend more than $1.25 million to implement supplemental environmental projects, such as removal of mercury, lead or asbestos from schools in Louisiana, providing environmental education in Kansas, abatement of residential lead contamination in Illinois, and retrofitting diesel school buses or other diesel vehicles in Indiana, Ohio, Iola, Alabama, and Kansas.