June 17, 2010

US meat plant to pay at least US$8 million for waste water violations

JBS Souderton Inc., earlier known as Smithfield Beef Group prior October 23, 2008, must pay at least US$8 million in civil penalties and for upgrades to its Franconia plant operation and maintenance.

JBS entered into a consent decree after failing to comply with the Clean Water Act during plant operations, which resulted to a total of 24,715 fish kills on August 10, 2007; December 5, 2007; and June 10, 2008.

"These problems predated the purchase of this plant by JBS. We inherited the issue from the previous owners and worked with the EPA and Pennsylvania state departments to come up with solution to fix this issue," JBS spokesman Chandler Keys.

As of 2004, JBS Souderton's operations, which include a rendering facility, were producing approximately 180 million pounds of boxed beef and 117 million pounds of ground beef, per year. The rendering facility processes the inedible and leftover material from the slaughter operations and processes kitchen grease from various restaurants.

Water from the beef processing and rendering facilities is conveyed to an on-site wastewater treatment plant, treated, and then discharged into the Skippack Creek.

JBS must reconstruct its wastewater system and spend US$6 million on a new wastewater treatment plant, according to the Department of Justice.

"We added a 10 million gallon anaerobic lagoon, which is covered to collect methane gas that we use as alternative fuel in the facility. We added more filtration programs which treat wastewater and filters phosphorous. We replaced our chlorine disinfection with UV disinfection," Keys said.

The corporation must also pay US$1.9 million in penalties and US$100,000 in damages. The penalties include US$950,000 each to the federal government and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

The US$100,000 in damages will be paid to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.