April 09, 2008 - Conoco-Phillips to Pay in Pollution Case

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April 9, 2008 - Conoco-Phillips has agreed to pay a $1.2 million fine to resolve civil allegations that its Borger oil refinery in the Texas Panhandle violated federal Clean Water Act limits for wastewater discharge hundreds of times from 1999 through 2006.

The Houston-based oil company admitted no liability in agreeing to pay the fine, and the plant has complied with its Clean Water Act permit for over a year, company spokesman Bill Graham said.

According to a Complaint and Consent Decree filed in Amarillo by the Justice Department, the allegations stemmed from discharge-monitoring reports that the company submitted, pursuant to the Clean Water Act, to the Environmental Protection Agency and to the state.

Those reports showed that from 1999 through 2006, the plant's wastewater treatment facility discharged pollutants that exceeded the limits set by its permit into two creeks and the Canadian River approximately 2,000 times.

The discharges consisted of effluent, or wastewater, discharged from refineries and other industrial facilities, and selenium, which resembles sulfur. Selenium is toxic to fish if amounts discharged into waterways are too high.

"After the United States took enforcement action, Conoco-Phillips brought the refinery into compliance with its Clean Water Act permit limits for both these pollutants," the Justice Department and the EPA said in a joint statement.

The Consent Decree requires Conoco-Phillips to monitor selenium levels in surrounding waters as well as its accumulation in fish tissue. The company also must maintain controls to minimize selenium discharges and fix effluent toxicity violations.

The Consent Decree said that the EPA has determined that the company's selenium monitoring efforts since January 2007, which include routing some waste to an on-site injection well, "appear to have been effective."

In addition, Conoco-Phillips will launch a $600,000 project to cut the amount of solids discharged into nearby waterways during storms, the Justice Department said.

The Consent Decree is subject to judicial approval.

Conoco-Phillips operates the refinery, but the owner is WRB Refining, a joint venture between Conoco-Phillips and  EnCana, of Calgary, Alberta.

WRB agreed to the Consent Decree along with Conoco-Phillips.

The fine is comparable to the $1.3 million that Home Depot agreed to pay in February, to resolve alleged Clean Water Act violations at 30 different construction sites in 28 states where its company stores are being built.

The largest civil penalty in EPA history for permit violations resulting from wastewater discharge was imposed in January against Massey Energy, the nation's fourth-largest fourth-largest coal company, wherein Massey agreed to pay $20 million to settle allegations that the company discharged excess metals, sediment and acid mine drainage into hundreds of rivers and streams in West Virginia and Kentucky.

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