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Lamb-Weston Settles Clean Air Act Complaint

Release Date: 10/8/1998
Contact Information: John Keenan
keenan@epamail.epa.gov
(206) 553-1817

October 8 ,  1998 - - - - - - - - - - - 98-54  

     

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lamb-Weston Inc. has agreed to spend more than a half million dollars  ---$160,000 in a cash settlement and $363,749 for environmental improvements   ---  to settle a complaint in federal court alleging that the company’s  potato processing facilities in American Falls and Twin Falls, Idaho, violated the federal Clean Air Act from 1991 to 1996.

The settlement was entered as a consent decree in U.S. District Court in Boise by the U.S. Department of Justice, and was announced today in Washington, D.C., by Lois J. Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division.

"For the residents of American Falls and Twin Falls, this settlement means healthier air and cleaner water," Schiffer said.  "This settlement is good for the environment and good for the people of Idaho."

In addition to Lamb-Weston and the Justice Department, the consent decree was also signed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).   In Seattle, the entry of the consent decree drew the following  comment from Chuck Clarke, EPA’s Northwest regional administrator:  

"This settlement will bring big reductions in air pollution in both Twin Falls and American Falls.  What’s more, at Twin Falls, Lamb-Weston will  reduce its daily use of fresh water, and will cut significantly the amount of solids in its wastewater discharges."

                                     

Under terms of  the settlement, Lamb-Weston agreed to take a number of pollution prevention steps:

• to install a burner that lowers airborne emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 40 percent at the plant in American Falls, and

• to build a wastewater recycling system for the potato washing system at the Twin Falls plant  that will result in a 45 percent reduction in the amount of fresh water used, and a 45 percent reduction in the amount of silt water discharged from the silt water system.

Lamb-Weston has already constructed the new burner at American Falls and startup tests indicate a 47 percent decrease in NOx emissions.

EPA referred this matter to the U.S.  Department of Justice in September 1996, alleging that the company did not properly report startup of a new facility, monitor its air emissions,  maintain monitoring records and make quarterly reports of excess emission from its facilities, as required by the Clean Air Act.

                                                               
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