Midwestern states lead the nation in economic impacts of recycling, according to the U.S. Recycling Economic Information Study. On a national level, the recycling industry supports more than 56,000 recycling establishments that gross more than $236 billion in annual revenues and employ more than 1.1 million people with a payroll of $37 billion. In the Midwest states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, more than 8,000 recycling and reuse businesses employ 275,000 workers with a payroll of almost $10 billion and gross more than $62.5 billion in annual sales, according to available data...Read More »
Ladwp Honored for Reducing, Recycling and Reusing
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has honored the Los Angeles, California Department of Water and Power in Washington D.C. with the Local Government Partner of the Year Award for its outstanding participation in the WasteWise program. For the year 2000, the LADWP generated 28,549 tons of unwanted materials, with 20,244 tons diverted from landfills. During the year LADWP only disposed of 8,305 tons, which translates to a department recycling and reuse rate of over 70 percent...Read More »
EPA Completes Western Minerals Industrial Site Cleanup
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has completed its cleanup of outdoor surface asbestos contamination at the former Western Minerals Products industrial site in northeast Minneapolis. The project began in mid-September at the site, which consists of two parcels of land: one owned by Madison Complex Inc., and the other by Electramatic Inc. The site was contaminated by waste materials from insulation manufacturing left by the Western Minerals Products Co., which operated at the site from the late 1930s to the late 1980s. The $750,000 industrial site cleanup included excavation of about 6,000 cubic yards of asbestos-contaminated soil, which was sent to a landfill in Elk River, Minn...Read More »
Whitman Announces Reorganization of EPA Ombudsman Office
EPA Administrator Christie Whitman will reorganize the EPA's office of ombudsman to give it a truly independent and impartial investigatory function. The ombudsman will be relocated in January to the Office of the Inspector General at EPA, an independent organization within the Agency. As part of this shift, the EPA Inspector General will conduct a systematic review of open inquiries for citizens who have sought Agency assistance...Read More »
The IT Group Provides Anthrax Response Support
The IT Group, Inc. (NYSE: ITX), through its wholly owned subsidiary IT Corporation, has been providing emergency support services over the past month to numerous federal agencies and private-sector clients in response to contamination resulting from anthrax-contaminated letters processed or delivered in Florida, Washington, D.C., New Jersey and New York. These still active emergency responses have included taking samples for anthrax, analyzing samples, providing other laboratory services, decontaminating and cleaning buildings and equipment, air monitoring and modeling, disposing of contaminated waste and providing risk assessment and engineering and logistical support. In addition, IT has played a leading role in investigating, developing and testing innovative decontamination techniques to help minimize and eliminate the current, significant anthrax contamination...Read More »
Thomas P. Dunne Appointed as EPA Associate Assistant Administrator
Marianne L. Horinko, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, has appointed Thomas P. Dunne to be the Associate Assistant Administrator for OSWER. Dunne¹s experience includes previous appointments with EPA as Acting Regional Administrator, Region 10, based in Seattle, and also as an Associate Administrator in charge of the Agency's Office of Regional Operations and State/Local Relations. Dunne most recently served as a Senior Policy Analyst and Project Manager for OAO Corp., based in Greenbelt, Md...Read More »
Premium Standard Settles on Wastewater Treatment Concerns
Premium Standard Farms, the nation's second-largest hog producer, will pay a $350,000 fine and spend millions on cleaner wastewater treatment at its Missouri farms under a settlement. The agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Citizens Legal Environmental Action Network settles all environmental claims brought by those groups against Premium Standard, including claims that it violated the Clean Water Act for allegedly discharging pollutants into rivers and streams. Officials with the Missouri Attorney General's Office said the state did not sign on to the settlement so it could "preserve its options'' on recent waste spills it was investigating...Read More »
Government Lab Workers Acquitted of Fraud
Eight lab workers have been acquitted of falsifying test results in what federal officials had called the largest case of fraud in environmental testing in U.S. history. Jurors rejected all 77 federal charges Tuesday against the former employees of Intertek Testing Services' Environmental Laboratories. The workers were accused of misrepresenting results in the cleanup of thousands of hazardous-waste sites and other environmental cases in a moneymaking scheme. All the employees worked at the company's lab in the Dallas suburb of Richardson, which stopped operating in 1998. As part of its agreement, the corporation will pay a $9 million fine. Prosecutors said Intertek managers pressured employees to bypass procedures required to produce reliable tests in order to complete lucrative government contracts faster. From 1994 to 1997, the company handled as many as 250,000 samples from more than 59,000 polluted sites nationwide, grossing more than $35 million. The results were used for making decisions at Superfund sites, Department of Defense facilities and hazardous waste sites, and also for monitoring hazards affecting soil and ground water...Read More »
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