The N.C. Division of Air Quality agreed to allow Carolina Solite to continue operating under a strict schedule, which is designed to bring the plant into compliance with air-pollution regulations within 10 months. The division had terminated the company’s air quality permit in July 1997 after finding that the plant was located on a much smaller site than it had reported, causing higher than expected air pollution levels around the site.
The state agreed to the settlement with Carolina Solite to speed up compliance with air quality regulations and to avoid a long and costly legal battle. Under state laws, the company was able to keep the plant open, despite the permit termination, while the case was under appeal.
Under the terms of the settlement, Carolina Solite can continue operating while making some immediate improvements to its pollution control equipment. The plant must install additional pollution controls by January 1999 and demonstrate that it complies with applicable air quality rules by March 1999.
“Ultimately, this agreement should assure that Stanly County residents are breathing cleaner air while allowing Carolina Solite to keep operating,” said Keith Overcash, deputy director for the Division of Air Quality (DAQ). “But the company must improve its operations, and it will face stiff penalties if it fails to install the required pollution controls under a strict timetable.”
Under the settlement, Carolina Solite agreed to:
The DAQ terminated Carolina Solite’s permit on July 22, 1997, after discovering that the company’s permit application was based on inaccurate survey maps of the plant’s boundaries -- thus invalidating the computer models used to estimate its impact on air quality. Subsequent modeling showed that arsenic levels in air around the plant could be as much as 9 times higher than the allowable limits in the state air toxics rules, which could cause health problems in people exposed over their lifetimes.
The settlement reached between the DAQ and Carolina Solite will require compliance in a much shorter time period than would have been possible while the case was in litigation. The state Office of Administrative Hearings was scheduled to hear the company’s appeal later this month. The case then would have gone to the state Environmental Management Commission for consideration. Even if Carolina Solite had lost that decision, the company could have appealed the case to Superior Court and eventually to the Court of Appeals -- a process that could have dragged out for several years.
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