"Our nation's environmental laws must be upheld and our environmental regulations must be followed," said Randall D. Collins, Vice President Safety, Health & Environmental Affairs for Koppers. "This agreement is a compromise of a dispute over consistent and complete environmental reporting. It's important to note that our independent development of improved environmental control processes made this compromise possible."
Collins said the company's enhanced environmental management system, in development for several years, is at the heart of the civil compromise filed Jan. 15 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Also included is a $2.9 million Koppers payment to the federal government. The agreement covers 24 Koppers plants in 16 states.
"Koppers has always been committed to complying with environmental laws, regulations and obligations," Collins said.
The enhanced environmental management system will meet the ISO 14001 international standard for environmental recordkeeping, he noted. "Our enhanced management system will help us be even better environmental stewards. We expect these improvements to continue."
The company's compromise agreement is part of an ongoing corporate effort to improve environmental performance and resolve environmental recordkeeping disputes with the government.
In December 2002, the same federal court accepted a Koppers agreement with the EPA and Department of Justice that closed a criminal review of environmental reporting issues at the company's closed Woodward Coke Plant in Dolomite, Ala., just outside Birmingham.
That case stemmed from a 1997 discovery by Koppers that a former plant environmental engineer falsified a discharge monitoring report. Also, employees failed to properly cover some door seals that were part of a gas-blanketing system at the plant.
"These acts were not ordered or condoned by Koppers. We discovered them, we immediately corrected them and we reported them," Collins said. "We did the right thing. We brought the results of our investigations to the government."
The former Woodward environmental engineer pled guilty to felony charges for falsification of a discharge monitoring report and was sentenced to three years' probation and six months of house confinement.
In the Woodward case, Koppers agreed to pay $2.1 million to the government and $900,000 in restitution to the Black Warrior-Cahaba Rivers Land Trust over a three-year period to aid in efforts to preserve the rivers' watershed.
As part of its ongoing environmental management processes, Collins said, Koppers has spent millions of dollars over the last decade to improve nearly every aspect of its operations, but neither of these agreements required the installation of any equipment.
"While it's unfortunate that some recordkeeping disputes result in legal action, we have worked hard in both of these situations to do what is right by the law, the environment, our employees and our communities," he said.
Source: Koppers
