The Environmental Protection Agency last week released its annual enforcement and compliance report. Highlighting the government’s efforts to hold corporate America accountable to US environmental law, the report detailed the biggest fines and cleanup projects slapped on polluters in 2014.

Overall, EPA’s enforcement activities this year required companies, public agencies and municipalities to invest nearly $10bn into controlling pollution. This is a major jump over the $7bn in so-called injunctive relief required by EPA’s enforcement efforts in 2013 and the $9bn it called for in 2012.

In fact, the 2014’s year end total may be even higher: several major cases, including the single-largest toxic cleanup settlement in US history, were resolved after the end of the government’s fiscal year but still within the calendar year. These would have added another $4.6bn to EPA’s 2014 environmental enforcement results.

EPA cases in 2014 also resulted in $163m in federal administrative penalties and civil and criminal judicial fines. That was a dramatic drop from the nearly $2.7bn in fines and penalties that were levied in 2013. Then again, that year included the record $1bn penalty that was levied against Transocean for its role in BP’s disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Here are eight of the biggest environmental offenders that the EPA called to account in 2014:

1. Anadarko Petroleum Corp

Touted by the US Justice Department as “the largest cleanup settlement in American history”, Anadarko agreed to pay $5.15bn into a litigation trust.

More than $4.4bn will go toward cleaning up toxic pollution, improving water quality and removing dangerous materials at sites around the US that have been contaminated by Anadarko, its subsidiary Kerr-McGee and other subsidiaries through chemical production and fossil fuel extraction.

2. East Bay Municipal Utility District

In July, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, Stege Sanitary District and several San Francisco Bay Area cities reached a settlement with the EPA over their sewer infrastructure.

The municipalities and utilities agreed to spend an estimated $1.5bn to repair and upgrade a leaky 1,500-mile-long system that has been spewing hundreds of millions of gallons of raw and partially treated sewage into San Francisco Bay every year. The public utilities and cities were also required to pay $1.5m in civil fines for past sewage discharges that violated environmental law.

3. Hyundai and Kia

Last month, the EPA and the US justice department announced a settlement with Hyundai and Kia that resolved alleged Clean Air Act violations and required the carmakers to pay a $100m civil penalty to address additional violations related to emissions testing and certification.

According to EPA, this is the largest such fine in Clean Air Act history. Hyundai and Kia must also spend about $50m on measures to prevent future violations and must forfeit 4.75m greenhouse gas emission credits, estimated to be worth over $200m.

4. Alpha Natural Resources

In March, Alpha Natural Resources, Alpha Appalachian Holdings (formerly Massey Energy) and 66 subsidiaries agreed to spend approximately $200m to install equipment to cut pollution from 79 coal mines and 25 processing plants in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. In addition, Alpha and its subsidiaries faced a $27.5m civil fine for thousands of permit violations.

According to EPA, that is the largest penalty to be enforced under Section 402 of the Clean Water Act so far.

5. Minnesota Power

In July, Minnesota Power agreed to install pollution-control equipment – estimated to cost half a billion dollars – at three emissions-belching coal-fired power plants. EPA expects the actions to slash emissions by over 13,350 tons a year.

The settlement also required Minnesota Power to pay a civil penalty of $1.4m to resolve alleged Clean Air Act violations and to spend at least $4.2m on environmental projects that benefit local communities.

6. Mishawaka, Indiana

In 2014, the city of Mishawaka, Indiana, agreed to invest an estimated $132.1m to improve its sewer system, which gushes an estimated 111m gallons of raw sewage into the St Joseph River annually.

This marked the third settlement since 2011 aimed at stopping raw-sewage discharge into the river. Combined, EPA expects the settlements and improvements to eliminate the annual discharge of 1.1bn gallons of raw sewage into the river.

7. Titanium Metals Corp

In May, Titanium Metals, one of the world’s largest producers of titanium parts for jet engines, agreed to pay a record $13.75m civil penalty and to clean up potential contamination from its unauthorized manufacture and disposal of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) at a facility in Nevada.

According to EPA, the fine is the largest ever imposed for violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act at a single facility.

8. Lowe’s home centers

In April, Lowe’s agreed to ensure that the home renovation contractors it hires through its 1,700 US retail stores will minimize lead dust, as required by a federal rule on renovations, repairs and painting. Lowe’s paid a $500,000 fine – the largest penalty ever for violations of the rule, according to EPA.



Garrett Hering is a San Francisco-based journalist covering energy, technology, business and the environment. His articles have appeared in California Energy Markets, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and elsewhere.

The values-led business hub is funded by SC Johnson. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “brought to you by”. Find out more here.



