Settlement Includes Automatic Fines for Future Violations and $150,000 for Local Projects to Benefit Public Health and
Environment

Settlement Fact Sheet

PROVIDENCE , RI – Three environmental groups announced today they have achieved a groundbreaking consent decree that successfully concludes the groups’ lawsuit against Bradford Dyeing Association, Inc. (BDA). The suit was brought to enforce ongoing violations of both the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act at the company’s southwestern Rhode Island textile mill.

The groups – Rhode Island Public Interest Research Group (RIPIRG), Toxics Action Center, and Sierra Club – had filed suit against BDA in August 2005, alleging thousands of violations of federal environmental laws that state regulators had ignored. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Ernest C. Torres signed the consent decree on November 6.

“This judicially enforceable settlement represents a tremendous achievement for the residents of Bradford, who have suffered from noxious air and polluted water for far too long,” said Paul Schramski, Rhode Island Community Organizer for Toxics Action Center.

BDA operates a textile finishing factory where more than 200 employees dye, print, coat, and finish fabrics for the Department of Defense and others. For years, nearby residents have complained of being forced indoors by the powerful chemical odors emitted from BDA’s factory. In addition, canoers and kayakers report that the normally pristine Pawcatuck River is a “dead zone” immediately downstream of the BDA plant, nearly devoid of visible aquatic life.

“State and federal environmental regulators had given BDA a free pass for years,” explained RIPIRG Advocate Matthew Auten. “By requiring the company to significantly upgrade its air pollution and water pollution controls, this settlement demonstrates the important role that citizens can and often must play in enforcing our environmental laws.”

The lawsuit charged that, according to the company’s own monitoring reports, BDA has been discharging illegal levels of copper, lead, fecal coliform bacteria, suspended solids, and other pollutants into the Pawcatuck River for more than five years, and has consistently failed tests measuring the overall toxicity of its effluent.

The environmental groups also targeted numerous violations of state odor regulations and opacity standards (which limit the amount of soot emitted from the plant’s smokestacks). Scores of opacity violations were documented by a monitoring device that measures emissions from BDA’s main smokestack – records that state Department of Environmental Management inspectors have apparently never looked at.

“Through pollution control upgrades, enhanced monitoring, and automatic penalties for future violations, this multi-faceted settlement agreement is designed to bring BDA into sustained compliance with the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts as quickly as possible,” said Chris Wilhite, Program Coordinator of Sierra Club’s Rhode Island Chapter.

Under the settlement agreement, BDA has agreed to implement numerous immediate upgrades to its decades-old mill, to hire outside consultants to study its environmental compliance issues and recommend further upgrades, and to achieve prompt compliance with the pollution limits in its air and water permits – or pay stipulated penalties if violations continue. (See attached fact sheet for details).

The company will also pay $150,000 for its past environmental violations. Half of that money will establish a Bradford Area Environmental Fund for local environmental and public health projects, and half will be devoted to a project to further reduce greenhouse gas and acid rain-causing emissions from BDA’s main boilers.

The environmental groups are represented by the Boston-based National Environmental Law Center, and attorneys David Nicholas of Newton, Massachusetts, and Kevin McAllister of Providence.

Paul Schramski, Toxics Action Center (401) 421-0007
Chris Wilhite, Sierra Club (401) 521-4734
Josh Kratka, NELC (617) 747-4333

FACT SHEET ON SETTLEMENT OF:

RIPIRG, Toxics Action Center, and Sierra Club v.

Bradford Dyeing Association, Inc.

The settlement agreement approved by the U.S. District Court includes the following provisions:

SETTLEMENT OF CLEAN WATER ACT CLAIMS

1. PLANT UPGRADES:

(a) Outside consultant will study wastewater treatment system, improve operations, retrain BDA employees, determine how to reduce copper and toxicity in wastewater, and recommend upgrades.

(b) Potential upgrades could include: creating a separate septic system to address fecal coliform violations; increased frequency of sludge removal from treatment ponds to remove heavy metals.

2. COMPLIANCE:

(a) BDA must achieve compliance with all effluent limits, and make monthly compliance reports to plaintiffs.

(b) BDA must pay automatic penalties of $500 for each violation of a daily pollutant discharge limit, $2,000 for each violation of a monthly average discharge limit, and $2,500 for each violation of the toxicity limit (which is measured quarterly), until 9 consecutive months of strict compliance are achieved for each water pollutant.

SETTLEMENT OF CLEAN AIR ACT CLAIMS

1. PLANT UPGRADES:

(a) Opacity: BDA will re-tool boilers and retrain personnel to reduce particulates (soot) coming out of the main smokestack.

(b) Opacity & Odor: BDA will install a new pollution control device (a “smoke abater”) to reduce emissions from textile finishing processes that generate the most significant amounts of smoke and a burning odor.

(c) Odor: BDA will increase the height and exit velocity of exhaust stacks on the factory roof to improve dispersion of acetic acid and other emissions that cause distinctive chemical odors.

(d) Odor: BDA will improve management of sludge ponds to reduce raw sewage odors.

2. COMPLIANCE:

(a) Independent consultant will monitor roof stack emissions, at BDA’s expense. Plaintiffs will receive monthly compliance reports from consultant (for roof stacks) and from BDA’s continuous opacity monitor (for the main smokestack).

(b) Main stack: BDA must achieve 98.5% or greater round-the-clock compliance with opacity limit each month. Roof stacks: BDA must achieve 100% compliance with opacity limit during all unannounced visits by independent monitoring consultant.

(c) BDA must pay automatic penalties of $500 per day for violations of the opacity limits for the main stack and for roof stacks, and $1,000 each time RI DEM finds an objectionable odor, until 9 consecutive months of compliance are achieved.

(d) Plaintiffs retain the right to go into court to enforce odor limitations if plant upgrades are ineffective.

PENALTY

BDA will pay $150,000 for its past violations, to be used as follows:

• $75,000 to establish a Bradford Area Environmental Fund, for environmental projects to benefit air quality and/or the Pawcatuck River watershed in the Bradford area. Any automatic penalties BDA pays for violations of the consent decree (see above) would be added to this fund.

• $75,000 towards installation of new equipment on one of BDA’s main boilers in order to reduce nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide emissions below levels required by law.

OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE SETTLEMENT:

• Strictest-in-the-state monitoring and enforcement of smokestack emissions.

• Immediate performance of copper and toxicity reduction studies, after 15 years of delay.

• Believed to be first Rhode Island citizen suit to enforce both the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.