Honeywell pleads guilty to illegal haz waste charges

March 14 -- Honeywell International Inc. pleaded guilty in Federal Court in Illinois to criminal charges connected to the illegal storage of hazardous waste at its Massac County, Ill., facility near Metropolis, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.

The company faced one felony charge of knowingly storing hazardous waste without a permit in violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

Government officials said Honeywell operates the only facility licensed in the U.S. to convert natural uranium into uranium hexafluoride for nuclear fuel. A waste from that process, called KOH mud, was pumped into 55-gallon drums. The material is considered a corrosive hazardous waste.

After shutting down a reclamation process for the KOH mud in 2002, the company failed to obtain a permit for the storage of the mud until the process could be restarted. By 2006, when the company reported the permitting deficiency and applied for a modification to its RCRA permit to store the drums, Honeywell had accumulated more than 7,000 drums of hazardous and radioactive material. The company regained compliance with its permits in March 2010 and has begun reprocessing the mud. Work on reprocessing is expected to be complete by 2013, three years ahead of a government deadline, the company said.

"We have taken all the necessary steps to remedy the situation," said Larry Smith, plant manager of Honeywell´s Metropolis facility.

In a statement issued by the company, Honeywell said, "No one was injured as a result of exposure to the regulated material, and there was no environmental impact."

As part of the plea agreement, Honeywell must pay $11.8 million in criminal fines and has been placed on probation for five years. During the probation, the company must comply with an interim consent order entered into with the Illinois Attorney General´s Office and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. The company also must implement a community service project in the community surrounding the Massac County facility, and must sponsor eight household hazardous waste collections over the next two years. The collection program will cost $200,000.

Separately, the company also settled a parallel civil suit brought by the state of Illinois and paid a fine of $690,000.

Contact Waste & Recycling News reporter Amanda Smith-Teutsch at 330-865-6166 or asmith-teutsch@crain.com

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