Covanta Settles for $536,211 in Lawsuit Over Biomass Ash Testing

-Decem­ber 11, 2014, Bak­ers­field Californian

Dis­trict attor­neys from eight Cal­i­for­nia coun­ties announced Thurs­day the set­tle­ment of a civ­il envi­ron­men­tal enforce­ment action against three sub­sidiaries of a New Jer­sey-based company.

The set­tle­ment cov­ers Cov­an­ta Ener­gy LLC’s Kern Coun­ty bio­mass ener­gy facil­i­ty in Delano, along with oth­er com­pa­ny facil­i­ties in Men­do­ta and Oroville.

Kern Coun­ty will receive about $75,000 as its reim­burse­ment for costs and penal­ties out of Cov­an­ta’s total fine of $536,211.

Bio­mass ener­gy plants burn for­est, agri­cul­tur­al and urban wood fuels in order to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty. They pro­duce ash waste streams that are either sent to land­fills or have oth­er uses in road build­ing or agriculture.

The civ­il enforce­ment action was filed in Sacra­men­to Coun­ty and assert­ed that bio­mass ash sam­pling and analy­sis at the three Cov­an­ta facil­i­ties was not suf­fi­cient­ly rigorous.

The facil­i­ties will be bound under the terms of a per­ma­nent injunc­tion pro­hibit­ing any future vio­la­tions of law and requir­ing adher­ence to the new sam­pling and test­ing pro­gram for their bio­mass ash.

In addi­tion to Kern and Sacra­men­to coun­ties, oth­er coun­ties par­tic­i­pat­ing in the action were Butte, Fres­no, Glenn, Stanis­laus, Tulare and Tuolumne.