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Angelus Sanitary Can Machinery Corp. fined for not providing toxic chemical information needed by first responders, communities / Los Angeles company to pay more than $240,000

Release Date: 04/01/2009
Contact Information: Dean Higuchi, 808-541-2711, higuchi.dean@epa.gov

(04/01/09) SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently reached a $241,290 settlement with the Angelus Sanitary Can Machinery Corp. of Los Angeles for allegedly failing to submit required toxic chemical reports, a violation of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.

The company, located at 4900 Pacific Boulevard, regularly uses such toxic chemicals as cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel, and manganese in its can machinery manufacturing operations. Angelus failed to submit timely, complete, and correct reports to the EPA and the state detailing the amounts of these five toxic chemicals processed at its facility from 2004 through 2006. EPA inspectors discovered the 15 violations as a result of an audit of the company’s records in 2007.

“Companies that use toxic chemicals must provide complete and accurate information about these chemicals so that area residents and emergency response personnel are aware of possible chemical hazards in the community,” said Enrique Manazanilla, Communities and Ecosystems Division director for EPA’s Pacific Southwest region.

Federal emergency planning laws require facilities processing more than 25,000 pounds of the chemicals at issue in this case to report releases of the chemicals on an annual basis to the EPA and the state. Although Angelus processed these five chemicals in amounts over this threshold in 2004, 2005, and 2006, it failed to submit reports to EPA for any of those years.

Each year the EPA compiles information submitted from the previous year regarding toxic chemical releases and produces a national Toxics Release Inventory database for public availability. This database estimates the amounts of each toxic chemical released to the environment, treated or recycled on-site, or transferred off-site for waste management, and also provides a trend analysis of toxic chemical releases.

For more information on the TRI program, please visit: https://www.epa.gov/tri. The U.S. EPA’s environmental databases, including the TRI program data, can be accessed at: https://www.epa.gov/enviro.
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