Anthrax Ground Zero Becomes Newest Superfund Site
The headquarters of American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla. have became the nation's latest Superfund site as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launches its plan to rid the building of anthrax. This is the first civilian bio-contamination cleanup the EPA has ever handled. Multiple agencies, many from the military, will help in the effort. They will rely on more than 50 experts in biological weapons defense, chemistry, hazardous materials response and others. No cost estimates have been made for the cleanup...Read More »
Allied Will Repay Back Wages to Massachusetts Workers
Allied Waste Industries Inc. (NYSE:AW) has agreed to pay $464,000 in back wages to about 300 workers who were underpaid while working for the trash hauler on municipal contracts in Massachusetts. About 80 percent of the restitution will be given to temporary workers who were paid between $6 and $10 per hour, well below the prevailing wage of $12 to $19 per hour for trash hauling work. The case is part of an effort by Massachusetts officials to address the wrongful use of temporary labor on taxpayer-funded contracts, Reilly's office said. After an investigation, with which Allied Waste cooperated, the state attorney general's office found the company underpaid employees who worked on publicly funded trash hauling services between June 27, 1997, and December 31, 2000...Read More »
Waste Management, Houston Collaborate on Electronics Recycling
Waste Management Inc. (NYSE:WMI) will work with the City of Houston to offer a residential electronics recycling pilot program at the City's Environmental Service Center and the Westpark Consumer Recycling Center. The Environmental Service Center and the Westpark Consumer Recycling Center will accept personal computers, monitors, cellular phones without batteries, televisions, printers, keyboards, mice, scanners, fax machines, telephones, VCRs, and small consumer electronics. Once collected, the items will be transported to Waste Management's Atascocita Recycle America Facility in Humble. Waste Management will then disassemble the electronics and transport approximately half of the materials to recyclers in North America and the remaining materials to end-markets in Europe and Asia...Read More »
Earthcare Sells Solid Waste Division
EarthCare Company (OTC Bulletin Board: ECCO) has signed a letter of intent to sell its Solid Waste division for $42 million to a private company, General Waste Corporation, which is owned by Donald F. Moorehead, Jr., EarthCare's Chairman. The transaction would result in a $5 million reduction of the company's senior debt, and the return to EarthCare of $18.9 million in the aggregate of face value of its Series A preferred stock and principal amount of its 12% Subordinated Notes due March 30, 2008. General Waste will also assume approximately $18.1 million in other indebtedness of EarthCare's Earth Resource Management subsidiaries, which conducts its solid waste business...Read More »
Ibp Settles Pollution Violations With $14m Payment
IBP Inc. will spend more than $14 million in penalties and improvements to settle a lawsuit filed over alleged environmental violations at its Dakota City, Neb., plant. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed the lawsuit in January 2000 against IBP, accusing the meatpacking giant of polluting the air and water surrounding its 200-acre Dakota City plant. As part of the settlement, IBP agreed to spend $10 million to construct additional wastewater treatment systems to efficiently reduce its discharges of ammonia into the Missouri River. The company also has agreed to continue reducing hydrogen sulfur air emissions. IBP, based in Dakota Dunes, S.D., also will pay penalties of $2.25 million to the EPA and $1.85 million to the state of Nebraska...Read More »
EPA Announces New Rules Promoting Cogeneration Efforts
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new rules to encourage U.S. manufacturing and industrial plants to use cogeneration, a more efficient technology for generating electricity. The planned rules, which would amend the federal Clean Air Act, would make it faster and easier for companies to build combined heat and power facilities, otherwise known as cogeneration. Conventional power plants are 30 to 50 percent energy efficient -- meaning the rest of the heat is lost as waste. Cogeneration plants are 70 to 80 percent efficient, the EPA has contended...Read More »
Epa: No Lingering Environmental Danger At Wtc Site
Extensive tests of air, dust and water in and around the site where New York's World Trade Center once stood have uncovered no major risks to people's health, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. A statement from the EPA and a Labor Department division dealing with health and safety said metals levels were slightly higher than normal in run-off water from the site, but this was not a cause for concern. Levels of deadly dioxin were also somewhat higher than normal, but the agencies said this would die down after the last fires were extinguished at the site...Read More »
Australia Starts Cleaning Up The South Pole
Australia environmental officials have announced they will accelerate the clean-up of decades of waste threatening Antarctica's environment after a donation of specialized containers from France's Vivendi Environnement. The company will provide 240 specially modified containers and its services to help in the removal of an estimated 300,000 tons of waste left in Antarctica after a century of exploration and occupation. More than 40 countries operate in Antarctica, with Australia claiming over 40 percent of the continent. The Antarctic nations now follow a policy of removing solid waste from their snow-bound bases but waste from past decades remains, including batteries, waste oils and chemicals...Read More »
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