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HAWKER PACIFIC TO PAY $60,000 FOR CLEAN WATER ACT VIOLATIONS

Release Date: 4/3/1996
Contact Information: Dave Schmidt, U.S. EPA, (415) 744-1578

(San Francisco)--The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and the City of Los Angeles today announced that they have fined Hawker Pacific Inc., of Sun Valley, Calif., $60,000 for discharging industrial wastewater that exceeded federal pretreatment limits for toxic chemicals, a violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA).

     In compliance with a consent decree lodged in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the company has also installed a vacuum evaporation system to eliminate Hawker Pacific's discharge of industrial wastewater.  An added benefit of the system is that it recycles the company's wastewater.

     "We strongly support reusing and recycling wastewater, both to reduce the volume of wastewater discharged to the city's sewage system and to reduce the volume of drinking water used at the facility," said Alexis Strauss, U.S. EPA's Acting Water Management Division director.

     Prior to 1990, Hawker Pacific had complied with the U.S. EPA's pretreatment standards. In 1990, the company installed a new pretreatment system, and wastewater that exceeded the limits was discharged numerous times to the Hyperion Wastewater Treatment Plant. The wastewater contained cyanide and heavy metals such as cadmium, chromium, lead, nickel and silver.  

     Sewage treatment plants are not equipped to effectively treat industrial wastes, which can then pass through the treatment process and be discharged to rivers, oceans, and other waterways. The CWA sets pretreatment standards, which are limits on the amount of chemicals that can be discharged by industries to a sewer system. Companies must treat this chemical wastewater to remove harmful pollutants and meet the standards before discharging these wastes to a treatment facility.

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