KAILUA-KONA — A failure to install vapor pollution controls and obey pollution limits under the Clean Air Act will cost a Hawaii-based petroleum company $632,000, according to an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday.
KAILUA-KONA — A failure to install vapor pollution controls and obey pollution limits under the Clean Air Act will cost a Hawaii-based petroleum company $632,000, according to an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday.
The Mid Pac Petroleum LLC facility at Kawaihae Harbor was emitting an illegal discharge of about 20 tons of volatile organic compounds each year since at least September 2004 from gasoline loading equipment, according to the EPA.
The settlement states the company will spend an estimated $432,000 to bring its facility into compliance with the law, and it agreed to pay a $200,000 civil penalty.
“This is EPA’s second settlement in the past year that will improve air quality on the Island of Hawaii,” said Alexis Strauss, EPA’s acting regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest. “As with Aloha Petroleum’s facility in Hilo, we are requiring Mid Pac Petroleum to install air pollution controls, cutting health risks to local residents.”
Mid Pac Petroleum is one of the four firms that import gasoline blendstock, which is the state gasoline is in before it is blended with ethanol to make the finished product, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
The company also owns the 76-brand gas stations in the Islands.
Jim Yates, president of Mid Pac Petroleum, referred questions to the EPA.
Mid Pac will “cooperate fully with the EPA in the matter,” he said.
The Kawaihae terminal was built in 1960 and is capable of moving up to 75,700 gallons of gasoline a day. The settlement says the updated equipment must be installed by March 1, 2017.
Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, can be harmful to humans, according to the American Lung Association.
“VOCs are gases that are emitted into the air from products or processes,” the ALA says. “Some are harmful by themselves, including some that cause cancer. In addition, they can react with other gases and form other air pollutants.”
Those reactions can result in the production of ground level ozone, which can cause breathing problems in humans and hamper plant growth.
It’s difficult to describe exactly how much damage the air pollution has done because of the duration of the emission, said EPA spokesman Dean Higuchi. But the issue is especially important for the Big Island because the pollution around the area would be amplified by the gases from the Kilauea eruption.
The improved equipment will include filters and other equipment to trap and contain the pollutants, Higuchi said.
“Any facility that deals with a lot of bulk fuel and transfers it, needs to comply with the rules,” he said.
Bulk gasoline terminals, such as the one in Kawaihae, are large storage tank facilities where gasoline is pumped through a loading rack into tanker trucks that then move it to gas stations.
“Vapors containing VOCs and hazardous air pollutants, including benzene, a known human carcinogen, can leak from storage tanks, pipes and tanker trucks as they are loaded,” the EPA wrote in a press release.
Email Graham Milldrum at gmilldrum@westhawaiitoday.com.