Two former supervisors at a Dutch Harbor seafood processing facility were sentenced in federal court Wednesday to jail time for Clean Air Act violations.
James Hampton, 45, was sentenced to 70 days in jail and Raul Morales, 53, will serve 45 days for falsifying data to cover up that they were intentionally not operating required air pollution controls at the Westward Seafoods, Inc. processing facility. The two men were also ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and serve a one-year supervision period after being released, according to a statement from the Alaska U.S. District Attorney’s Office.
Hampton, the former assistant chief engineer for Westward, and Morales, the former powerhouse supervisor, knowingly broke the law, said Chief U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline in the statement, adding that the sentences handed down should deter others from committing similar crimes.
Westward, a subsidiary of Japan-based Maruha-Nichiro Holdings, Inc., has operated a seafood processing facility in Dutch Harbor since the ’90s and processes about 250 million pounds of seafood a year, charges say. The facility generates its own electricity with diesel-fueled generators in the powerhouse building. Air emissions from the generators – which are regulated by a Title V Permit under the Clean Air Act — are vented through a smokestack.
Under the terms of the permit, Westward was supposed to install and use pollution control equipment to lessen the amount of nitrogen dioxide emitted. To meet the permit requirements, Westward installed a combustion air saturation system (CASS) for the generator units. From 2009 to August 2011, however, Westward did not use CASS pollution control equipment, the district attorney’s office says.
“Raul Morales discussed with James Hampton that he and the powerhouse staff had stopped operating the CASS. Thereafter, Hampton not only allowed this permit violation to continue, but he used his position to actively participate in a cover-up designed to make it appear that the CASS was in fact being used as required by law,” the district attorney’s office statement says.
Morales, along with powerhouse operator Bryan Beigh, falsified data collection forms daily. Beigh also pleaded guilty in the cover-up and will be sentenced later this month, said attorney Kevin R. Feldis. The false information made it look like the CASS was operating when it was actually off, and included false water meter flow readings to mask the disuse.
The deceit continued in April 2011, when Hampton took an Environmental Protection Agency inspector through the Westward powerhouse during an inspection. The company had a heads up about the visit and started operating the CASS equipment to make it appear that they had been using it routinely.
Although the EPA didn’t receive any reports of harm to humans from the emissions, nitrogen dioxide can cause airway inflammation and cause or worsen respiratory condition symptoms such as asthma and bronchitis.
“When they turned off the pollution controls for two years, emissions from this major pollution source increased, potentially putting workers or anyone nearby at risk for increased breathing problems,” said Tyler Amon, special agent-in-charge of the EPA Criminal Investigation Division in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, in a statement.
This is not the first time the company has been involved in Clean Air Act violations. In 2010, Westward agreed to pay a civil penalty following prior allegations “that the company had, among other things, violated emissions limits under the Clean Air Act,” the district attorney’s office statement says.