A California environmental group has sued Hixson Metal Finishing in Newport Beach, alleging violations of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and Clean Water Act.
Orange County Coastkeeper (OCC) claims that Hixson has unlawfully discharged pollutants from its facility onto its parking lot and is then tracked onto streets — and into nearby waterways through storm drains— by vehicles leaving the facility.
OCC seeks to recover injunctive and declaratory relief, civil penalties of $59,973 per day per violation of the Clean Water Act, as well as attorney’s fees and costs.
“With every significant rainfall event, millions of gallons of polluted stormwater, originating from industrial operations such as the Facility, pour into storm drains and local waterways,” OCC attorneys Sarah Spinuzzi and Lauren Chase state in the suit. “The consensus among regulatory agencies and water quality specialists is that stormwater pollution accounts for more than half of the total pollution entering surface waters each year.”
Notice of Violation and Intent To Sue
Douglas GreeneDouglas Greene, president and CEO of Hixson, said that OCC sent them a “Notice of Violation and Intent To Sue” letter in February asking them to cease what OCC claims are the stormwater violations. The group also sent the letter to the U.S. EPA, the Department of Justice, and California officials, asking them to find Hixson in violation.
Hixson has not been cited by any state or federal regulatory agency for violations. Greene says they do not have enough data to show that any pollutants are being picked up from the parking lots and vehicles leaving Hixson that are then contaminating storm waters.
“It just doesn’t rain that much here in Newport Beach, so there isn’t enough outflow to get the data,” he says. “That makes it so much harder to see what the numbers are. We have been actively working with them, but the level limits here are so sensitive that I don’t even know if we would ever meet them. If we took tap water and poured it down the drain, I’m sure we would be in violation.”
OCC says it is “dedicated to the preservation, protection, and defense of the environment, wildlife, and natural resources of Orange County. Coastkeeper’s mission is to preserve the region’s water resources, so they are swimmable, drinkable, and fishable for present and future generations.”
Neighborhoods Grow Around Facility
Hixson was founded in 1958 but has been in a battle with the air quality management groups in Southern California for over a decade when neighbors began complaining about the company as neighborhoods began growing around the industrial complex.
Greene says that Hixson has spent over $6 million upgrading its facility to meet air quality standards for the region and is willing to work with OCC in negating any further matters that may crop up.
He says that in the initial discussion with OCC, Hixson is exploring ways to trench around their 30,000 square feet of parking to capture any rainwater that may occur and pump it into storage containers.
“It will take hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this, but I don’t think OCC will go away,” Greene says.
The Hixson case follows a similar episode in Alabama, where an environmental group filed March a “Notice of Intent to Sue” a metal finishing and casting plant in Birmingham that it claims is violating the federal Clean Water Act.
Black Warrior Riverkeeper (BWR) — a nonprofit organization that promotes clean water — filed the notice to sue Kamtek, Inc. in federal court on March 22 for what it claims is a violation of toxic pollutant standards at the auto supplier’s aluminum casting plant. The notice says Kamtek discharges process wastewater to Jefferson County’s Five Mile Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant and that WWTP discharges into Five Mile Creek, a tributary of the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River.
BWR is asking that Kamtek take “steps to eradicate the underlying cause of the violations” within 60 days of the notice, or the group says it will go forward with the lawsuit.
