| 7-Up to pay more
than $1M in fines for water violations at Calif. plants Nov. 11 Seven Up/RC Bottling Company of Southern California will pay more than $1 million in criminal and civil fines for industrial stormwater and wastewater violations at its bottling plants in Vernon, Calif., and Buena Park, Calif. Attorneys for the company entered guilty pleas Nov. 10 on 12 counts of violating the Clean Water Act in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. The fines break down to a $600,000 criminal penalty and a $428,250 civil penalty. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency started investigating the company in 2002 and discovered that the Vernon facility had been discharging grease, petroleum and acid drink byproducts directly into the Los Angeles River. In 2003, the agency found that the Buena Park bottling plant was discharging acidic industrial wastewater directly into the Orange County Sanitation District sewer system. The next year, the EPA discovered that the facility was discharging industrial wastewater through a makeshift rooftop pipe into a San Gabriel River tributary. Further investigations found that both plants failed to follow stormwater discharge permit requirements, which caused prolonged polluted runoff discharges to the San Gabriel and Los Angeles rivers.
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