On September 30, 2004, Region 5 filed the attached Consent Agreement and Final Order with Co-Operative Plating Company (Co-Operative Plating). The CAFO requires Co-Operative Plating to pay within thirty days a civil penalty of $7,136.00, revise its inspection log and improve inspection procedures, and perform tank tightness tests on the tanks located at its facility in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In a Pre-Filing Notice Letter, issued July 28, 2004, U.S. EPA alleged that Co-Operative Plating failed to (1) obtain a certified professional engineer�s assessment of the structural integrity of seven above ground tank systems used to store hazardous waste at the facility, (2) obtain a certification by a professional engineer that the seven tank systems were properly installed, (3) test the seven tank systems for tightness prior to use, (4) inspect on a daily basis the above ground piping used to transfer waste from processing areas to the storage tanks, (5) provide the home addresses for all of the emergency coordinators in the facility�s contingency plan and provide the home phone numbers for two of them, and (6) label one full satellite accumulation container of hazardous waste with the accumulation date.
In response to the Pre-Filing Notice Letter, Co-Operative Plating provided U.S. EPA with information that demonstrated it had substantially complied with the applicable regulations when it resolved an earlier enforcement action brought by the Minnesota Pollution Control Ag