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Tucson pool company removing chlorine gas from operations after environmental violations

Release Date: 09/04/2008
Contact Information: Margot Perez-Sullivan, 415.947.4149, perezsullivan.margot@epa.gov

Splash Pool Chemicals, Inc. to pay fines, switch to less toxic alternative

SAN FRANCISCO - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently settled with Splash Pool Chemicals, Inc. for failing to prepare written emergency operation procedures and failing to submit an annual chemical inventory, violations of the Clean Air Act and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know-Act, respectively.

Splash Pool Chemicals, Inc. of Tucson, Ariz., will pay a $4,000 penalty in addition to spending approximately $17,000 on an environment project. The company will remove chlorine gas from its operations and replace it with sodium hypochlorite, an alternative, less toxic means of pool chlorination.

“Splash Pool Chemicals violated laws that protect and inform communities near facilities that use hazardous substances and other chemicals,” said Daniel Meer, the EPA’s assistant Superfund director for the Pacific Southwest region. “As a result of this settlement, the company has agreed not only to pay fines but also to use an alternative product that will significantly reduce the potential for chlorine releases into the environment – lowering the threat of chlorine gas exposure to workers and the public.”

The company also settled a Clean Air Act violation, paying a $337 fine for failing to prepare and submit emergency operation procedures for its on-site chlorine gas storage tank.

The CAA requires registered facilities to prepare written procedures to manage risk at the facility, including procedures for normal and emergency shut-down operations.

The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know-Act requires all facilities using hazardous substances above specified threshold quantities to provide annual chemical inventory information to local emergency planners for inclusion in the community emergency plan.