Hi-Acres, LLC, d/b/a Foremost Fertilizer, Inc., (?Hi-Acres?or ?Defendant?) violated the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (?RCRA?) (42 U.S.C. ?? 6901-6922k), and the implementing regulations at 40 C.F.R. Parts 260 through 280, and the correlating Florida statutes and implementing regulations relating to the generation, storage, handling and disposal of hazardous wastes, and also violated RCRA Section 3004(d), 42 U.S.C. ? 6924(d), relating to the disposal of hazardous wastes restricted from land disposal. The State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection (?State?) is a co-plaintiff in this action. The Defendant has agreed to pay a penalty of $400,000 to be evenly split with the State, and to perform corrective action and injunctive relief sought by the United States and the State.
Hi-Acres owns and operates a retail sales outlet for pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. The facility is located in Leesburg, Lake County, Florida. On March 16, 2005, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (?FDEP?) conducted a RCRA hazardous waste compliance inspection at the Facility in response to a citizen complaint that chemicals were allegedly ?eating through drums and leaking on the ground.?
Subsequently, samples were taken which showed that some of the materials stored at the Facility were RCRA characteristic wastes because of ignitability, corrosiveness or because they failed the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (?TLCP?). In addition, the s