DHEC board challenges Sonoco fine issued by agency staff

The state Department of Health and Environmental Control’s decision to fine a popular employer $230,000 sparked questions Thursday from agency board members about whether DHEC was being too hard on businesses.

Board members Clarence Batts and Mark Lutz said the agency appears to have issued heavier-than-normal fines recently against companies and others for breaking environmental laws.

Of particular concern was DHEC’s fine against Sonoco, a global packaging company that employs thousands of people. The department announced this week that it had fined Sonoco $230,000 for having an unpermitted coal ash dump on its property in Darlington County. Coal ash is filled with toxins that can leak into groundwater or pollute streams.

The fine “seemed like a lot for this type of an issue, where there doesn’t appear to be any (intent) and certainly is a first-time offense,’’ Batts said at DHEC’s monthly board meeting. “I would think, part of it, would have been suspended or something along those lines in order to fix the problem.’’

Batts, a retired chemical company executive from the Upstate, questioned whether Sonoco and other businesses with deep pockets were being leaned on too heavily by the department’s enforcement staff. Batts said the agency often works with financially strapped entities to set up arrangements to pay fines, but in this case “it seems as though we’ve gone on the other end in terms of maybe folks we feel like can pay. We’ve hit them pretty hard.’’

Sonoco operates in three dozen countries. Based in Hartsville, the business is beloved in the community and has made a point to push “green’’ businesses practices.

The company, however, had trouble managing coal ash at a site in the Hartsville area. Sonoco had been piling up waste ash created by burning coal for electricity. It had for years scooped the ash from the pile and sold it to other businesses, which recycled the material for use in bricks, cement and other materials.

But the recycling market dried up, and with no customers, the pile grew larger, becoming an unpermitted —and illegal — disposal site, according to DHEC staff members.

Robin Stephens, an agency enforcement liaison, said staff members based much of the fine on Sonoco’s failure to correct the problem for a decade. The company gained an “economic benefit” by not paying to properly dispose of the ash, Stephens said. The fine was one of the heaviest levied by DHEC in the past decade, records show.

“It’s what bumped it up,’’ she said, noting that the “the main portion’’ of the agency’s decision was the economic benefit the company gained.

“They should have disposed of it,’’ Stephens said.

Batts and Lutz said Sonoco wasn’t the only high fine they noticed in this month’s list of enforcement actions, which are included in the board’s meeting agenda packet.

They did not single out other fines during Thursday’s board meeting, but other major penalties included a $120,000 levy against the S.C. Department of Transportation for sediment violations in Lexington County while working on a widening project on Platt Springs Road about two years ago.

DHEC hit the DOT with the fine and required the roads agency to clean up cleanup a tributary to Congaree Creek. The DOT failed to maintain proper stormwater and sediment controls while the project was underway under way. Congaree Creek runs through a state nature preserve near the Congaree River near Cayce.

Batts said that some of those receiving large finesappeared to act in good faith and had no history of violations, “then bingo, you get hit’’ with a fine.

“It seemed unusual that so many were so high this time,’’ Lutz agreed, asking if DHEC had changed its enforcement policies.

Stephens said the agency has not acted any differently when issuing fines. The department goes by a matrix for penalties that takes into account past violations; the potential harm to the public or the environment that resulted from failing to follow the law; and the amount of time it occurred. The agency’s enforcement staff also examines how soon companies came into compliance and their willingness to fix violations, before determining the final penalty, she said.

“There are lots of factors, but it is a standard process that we go through,’’ Stephens said.

In Sonoco’s case, the company agreed to pay the fine and fix the problem. A spokesman said earlier this week that Sonoco did not disagree with the fine. The company called the unpermitted ash pile issue an “oversight.’’

This story was originally published August 13, 2015 at 2:12 PM with the headline "DHEC board challenges Sonoco fine issued by agency staff."