Pittsburgh, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has fined EG Systems of Marysville, Ohio, $160,000 for the deliberate disposal by an employee of an herbicide-pesticide-fertilizer mixture into a small Allegheny County stream. EG Systems does business in the Pittsburgh area as Scotts Lawn Service. In June 2010, DEP investigators discovered an EG Systems employee at the Scotts Lawn Service location in Monroeville had built a siphon system connecting an 8,000-gallon holding tank to a gutter downspout drain. The drain empties directly into a storm sewer, which discharges into a tributary of Thompson Run. The employee later used the siphon to drain five gallons of a mixture of herbicide, pesticide, fertilizer, and water into the drain to test how long it would take to drain a known volume of the material. The next day, the employee used the siphon to discharge between 800 and 1,000 gallons of the mixture into the drain, which was detected by neighbors who called the authorities. DEP and the company entered into a consent assessment on eight violations of the state’s solid waste management act and clean stream laws, and the employee later reached a settlement on criminal charges with the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General calling for two years probation, a $2,500 fine, and 40 hours of community service.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain