Wixom auto parts company fined $200K after pleading guilty to Clean Water Action violation
A Wixom chrome plating operation that investigators found overrode 460 warning alarms as it dumped wastewater with elevated levels of potentially health-harming chemicals into the city's sanitary sewer system has been sentenced for federal Clean Water Act violations.
Tribar Technologies Inc. was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Detroit to pay a $200,000 criminal fine, $20,000 in restitution and to serve five years' probation. Tribar officials had earlier pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act, a misdemeanor, with its wastewater release, Acting U.S. Attorney Julie A. Beck said in a release.
According to court documents, Tribar manufactures decorative trim assemblies and components for the automotive and commercial vehicle markets in southeast Michigan. At Tribar's Plant 5, the Wixom facility where the improper wastewater discharge occurred, the company uses an electroplating process to apply chrome finishing to plastic automotive parts.
The Tribar Manufacturing facility in Wixom, on Aug. 8, 2022.
On July 23, 2022, Tribar Plant 5 accumulated approximately 15,000 gallons of untreated wastewater with high concentrations of hexavalent chromium. After attempts at treatment, the chemical levels were still at levels that required additional treatment before release into Wixom's sanitary sewer system. But on July 29, 2022, a Tribar employee released about 10,000 gallons of insufficiently treated wastewater from the tank into the city sewer system. Some 460 alarm bells sounded at the plant but were disabled, according to investigators.
Tribar officials did not report the illegal discharge until Aug. 1, 2022. State public health and environmental regulators issued an emergency advisory that day, urging the public to avoid contact with Huron River water between North Wixom Road in Oakland County and Kensington Road in Livingston County, an area that includes Hubbell Pond, also known as Mill Pond, in Oakland County; and Kent Lake in Kensington Metropark. The alert lasted several days, as extensive testing found hexavalent chromium in Hubbel Pond and Kent Lake, but at levels that did not exceed regulatory values to protect aquatic life.
A sign reads the closure of The Maple Beach at Kensington Metropark in Milford Township, Michigan due to water contamination on Aug. 8, 2022. The hexavalent chromium release from the Tribar facility contaminated the Huron river, the Michigan EGLE testing is being done from Kent Lake at Kensington Metropark back to Wixom.
"Tribar's failure to adequately train and supervise its employees jeopardized the safety and quality of local water resources," Beck said.
Hexavalent chromium is a metal used in electroplating, stainless steel production, leather tanning, textile manufacturing and wood preservation. It can be harmful to human health when ingested, touched or inhaled, and has been associated with breathing problems and lung and intestinal cancers.
Hexavalent chromium has been dubbed "the Erin Brockovich chemical" after the California woman who discovered widespread contamination with the metal from a large state utility. Actress Julia Roberts' portrayal of the citizen turned environmental activist in the 2000 movie "Erin Brockovich" won Roberts the Best Actress Academy Award the following year.
The Tribar case was investigated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Criminal Investigation Division, the U.S. Department of Justice Environmental Crimes Division, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the FBI and the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service.
As part of its guilty plea and sentence, Tribar Technologies is required to install an environmental management system and compliance plan within the first six months of its 5-year probation.
Contact Keith Matheny: kmatheny@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Wixom chrome plater Tribar fined $200K for Clean Water Act violations
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