The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) said Xcel began to store the tritium-contaminated groundwater in aboveground storage tanks without obtaining a required permit from the state.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) said Xcel began to store the tritium-contaminated groundwater in aboveground storage tanks without obtaining a required permit from the state.
I’m be curious to know how that storage method matches against the standard for storage.
I’m not in favor of removing a fine, get permitted dumbasses and all that, but if they at least followed the standard for storage then a small fine would be acceptable to me.
Permits also enable stuff like a regular independent inspection regime which might be a good idea for especially dangerous stuff.
It’s not good enough (in my opinion) that they might be doing it right for now - they have do do what is necessary so that it can continue to be done right until the stuff is safe.
If they go out of business or sell the land or assets, the next people need to know what is where and how to handle it and have all the records and reports and so on. So a proper public record, rather than private would better.
Don’t get me wrong, a spill is worse than a paperwok infringement, but
this fine seems trivial in relation to (what I think should be) the level of responsibility for handling and toxic materials - even just getting all the paperwork right.
Imagine if they did go out of business, and someone had to re-inspect the whole site to determine the risks with no reports to start from - could that be done for $14k?
Without having knowledge of the cost of inspection I can’t answer that question.
I’m also not arguing against permits or the fact that they fucked up by not getting permitted, I’m just curious if that storage method is on par with the standard.
If so, then in your scenario the inspection would be at or near it’s minimal cost because the inspector would check see everything they expect and life would be groovy. This is opposed to nonstandard methods where the inspector will have to figure out what impact their method did or did not have on the local environment which costs much more time (and money)