Conrail will pay more than $4 million in waste case; includes biggest environmental crime penalty in Pennsylvania history
Contents
Largest fine ever
What the investigation found
The Department of Environmental Protection agreement
Conrail's response
In what the Pennsylvania officials heralded as the largest fine ever levied for environmental crimes in the state's history, a county judge has ordered Philadelphia-based Consolidated Rail Corp. (Conrail) to pay $3 million in penalties and costs.
State Attorney General Mike Fisher said that Conrail, which is owned by CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern, had been charged and pleaded guilty to the "systematic illegal disposal of hundreds of thousands of pounds of hazardous waste" at the Hollidaysburg Reclamation Plant and the Eastbound Rail Yards in Logan Township, Blair County, western Pennsylvania.
Blair County President Judge Thomas G. Peoples accepted the railroad's guilty plea, imposed the sentence and gave the company two years of probation, according to the state.
The sentence is on top of $1.1 million in civil penalties and clean-up costs that Conrail agreed to pay July 12 related to charges by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). That agreement concerned violations at the reclamation plant, the Hollidaysburg Car Shop, the Juniata Locomotive Shop and the East Bound Rail Yard, according to DEP.
Conrail issued a statement taking full responsibility for the charges, and acknowledging their seriousness. It also said that most of the conduct at issue occurred about 20 years ago, when the company was changing practices it had inherited from another operator in order to comply with new environmental laws.
The company added that it has cooperated with the state's investigation, has been cleaning up and that no serious permanent environmental impact has occurred.
Back to top
Largest fine ever
"This is the largest fine ever handed out for environmental crimes in state history," Fisher said. "It shows Pennsylvania's commitment to holding polluters responsible for environmental crimes."
A statement from his office said that Fisher's Environmental Crimes Section began its investigation of Conrail based on a referral from DEP.
The statement noted that since taking office in 1997, Fisher has made the Conrail investigation a top priority of his Environmental Crimes Section. Since then, the attorney general said, his agents had conducted seven searches of the Conrail facilities. The searches included bringing in bulldozers and backhoes to look for buried drums and buried waste. The state said that agents obtained and analyzed hundreds of samples of soil and produced more than 700 pages of interviews. Fisher added that his agents received and reviewed more than 40 boxes of evidence containing more than 100,000 microfiche and hard-copy documents.
"Conrail showed a complete disregard for the environment, as well as the health and welfare of its employees and neighbors," Fisher said.
The attorney general charged Conrail on July 12 with four counts of hazardous-waste violations of the state's Solid Waste Management Act, one count of unlawful conduct, and one count of failure to properly dispose, process and store residual waste.
The company pleaded guilty to all counts.
Back to top
What the investigation found
Fisher said his investigation revealed that workers at
the reclamation plant were ordered to drive "slop trucks" containing waste oil and other hazardous materials used in cleaning and reclamation processes. The waste included a hazardous solvent known as trichloroethane, which the state said is a toxic and harmful chemical compound. The attorney general's office said the slop trucks were driven on dirt roads around the reclamation plant to control dust and contents spilled onto the ground at an area known as the "fields."
Fisher said his agents also found that Conrail operated a drum, or barrel, crusher that was used to smash drums. The drums were later buried or sold for scrap metal. Agents reportedly learned that workers would crush drums, with waste spilling onto the ground. The state said that the drums contained hazardous wastes, such as trichloroethane, mineral spirits, paint, motor oil and hydraulic oil.
Fisher said agents were also responsible for uncovering thousands of drums buried on a hill near the reclamation plant.
The attorney general's office said that investigators could not conclusively prove that the drums were buried after 1980, which is the year the state legislature passed the Solid Waste Management Act. Fisher explained that because there was insufficient evidence to show the drums were buried after the law was passed, Conrail was not charged for burying the drums. Fisher said five of the six charges against Conrail occurred between Jan. 1, 1981, and Dec. 31, 1984.
From April 3, 1992, through June 8, 1998, Fisher said, Conrail also illegally disposed of sand and paint chips generated from sandblasting operations at its Juniata Locomotive Shop. The sand was illegally buried at various locations at the Juniata Locomotive Shop site, Fisher's office said.
The attorney general explained that the Hollidaysburg Reclamation Plant is situated on about 40 acres and that the Beaver Dam Branch and the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata River border the property. He said that approximately 3,600 residents live within a three-mile radius of the reclamation plant. The residents use ground water for their drinking supply, and the closest private wells are located 600 feet to the north of the reclamation plant, the state said. The Eastbound Rail Yards are located several miles away, in Logan Township.
Fisher said that as part of its guilty plea, Conrail has agreed to completely clean up the reclamation plant at no cost to the taxpayers.
During the two years of probation, the court will ensure the cleanup is completed to DEP specifications.
Fisher said that as part of its ongoing effort to ensure public safety, DEP has installed monitoring wells, which will be tested regularly to ensure that ground water is not contaminated.
Fisher said that $674,500 of the Conrail fines and costs will stay in Blair County. He said Conrail must pay:
- $340,000 to the Glen White Run Waste Restoration Project
- $200,000 to the Blair County Conservation District
- $32,500 to the Altoona Police Department
- $21,000 to the Logan Township Police Department
- $18,500 to the Greenwood Fire Company
- $18,500 to the Pinecroft Fire Company
- $32,000 to the Blair County 911 Center
- $20,000 to the Youth Field Day, sponsored by the Blair County Game, Fish and Forestry Association and the Hollidaysburg Sportsman Club
- $15,000 to the Northeast Enforcement Project to train law-enforcement and emergency-response personnel in Blair County.
It wasn't immediately clear why the payments listed were $8,000 more than the $674,500 Fisher said would remain in Blair County.
Back to top
The Department of Environmental Protection agreement
In addition to the criminal settlement, DEP entered into two agreements with Conrail.
The first is a consent order and agreement resolving the penalties for the waste violations. The second is a consent order and agreement with Conrail and Pennsylvania Lines, which the DEP identified as the actual owner of the Hollidaysburg Car Shop.
Under that agreement, both companies will be responsible for the cleanup of the Hollidaysburg site. In the DEP agreement, the state said the $1.1 million will be evenly split between cleaning up the sites and community projects.
"This is the one of the largest community-environmental projects (CEP) settlements in Pennsylvania history," DEP Secretary James M. Seif said. "Half of the $1.1 million will fund CEP that will directly benefit citizens of Blair County. The other half will go to the Solid Waste Abatement Fund."
Seif said that when wastes were discovered in 1997, DEP ordered Conrail to identify and clean up environmental problems at the Hollidaysburg site. He said the process is continuing.
"The consent order and agreement we finalized today says the companies will continue site cleanup and obligates them for future cleanup costs," he said.
DEP estimated that Conrail had already spent more than $1 million to investigate and cleanup the Hollidaysburg site. The Community Environmental Projects to be undertaken under DEP's portion of the penalties for the Hollidaysburg site are:
- Hollidaysburg — $275,000 for the Canal Basin Park project. The park will provide visitors with an interpretation of the history of the 19th century canal. Hollidaysburg served as the western terminus of the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal, where boats were
taken from the canal, pulled up a series of inclines over the Allegheny Ridge and returned to the Beavertown branch of the Juniata River.
- Altoona City Authority — $75,000 for environmental sampling at the Westerly sewage-treatment facility. The plant is along the Beavertown branch of the Juniata River.
- Environmental Fund for Pennsylvania — $200,000 for the Neighborhood Water Quality Protection Grant program that provides environmental education, water-related research, surveys, monitoring and water-quality improvement in low-income or minority communities.
The DEP said that community-environmental projects sometimes are accepted in lieu of a portion of civil-penalty payments when the proposed project has a substantial public health, safety or environmental benefit to the community.
Back to top
Conrail's response
Conrail issued a statement saying that it had been cooperating with the investigation, accepted the agreement announced by the state and included an explanation aimed at providing context to the situation.
The statement follows.
Conrail acknowledges the seriousness of the charges to which it has agreed and the company accepts full responsibility for them.
However, the company also believes that these charges must be viewed in light of the facts:
- The overwhelming majority of the conduct at issue occurred almost 20 years ago, when Conrail was in the process of changing practices it inherited from the prior operator of the site in order to comply with then newly enacted environmental laws.
- As a result of Conrail's clean-up efforts in cooperation with the Commonwealth, there has been no serious permanent impact on the environment.
- Throughout the Commonwealth's investigation, Conrail cooperated fully with the state's investigators.
Conrail believes that in the intervening decades it has demonstrated its commitment to being a responsible corporate citizen of Blair County, the Commonwealth, and all the communities it serves.
Conrail provides local rail freight service in New Jersey and the Philadelphia and Detroit metropolitan areas as agent for its joint owners, CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp.