News Releases from Region 09

NEWS BRIEF: Phoenix-based Semiray fined $65,000 for hazardous waste violations

For Immediate Release:   October 5, 2016

SAN FRANCISCO –Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fined Semiray, an industrial processing facility, $65,000 for violating federal hazardous waste laws. 

Semiray, located on East Washington Street north of Sky Harbor Airport, services the aerospace, military, electronics, and commercial manufacturing industries, and its activities create metal plating wastes. Following three Notices of Violation issued by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and the City of Phoenix from 2010 to 2012, the EPA inspected the facility.

During its 2014 inspection, the EPA identified several hazardous waste violations, including:

• Storing hazardous metal plating wastes without a permit
• Failure to properly maintain the facility to minimize the possibility of a release of hazardous waste to air, soil, or surface water
• Failure to train workers, increasing their risk of exposure and the likelihood of improper waste management

Following the EPA’s inspection, Semiray personnel completed hazardous waste training and upgraded portions of the facility’s wastewater treatment plant at which hazardous plating wastes had been improperly stored.  

The federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) program oversees the safe management and disposal of hazardous waste. Under authority delegated by the EPA, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality enforces this hazardous waste management program in the State, and today’s enforcement action is part of EPA’s responsibility to ensure the State effectively implements its program.  

For more information on the RCRA program, please visit:
https://www.epa.gov/rcra