AMVAC Chemical Corporation, Violating Federal Hazardous Waste Law, Alabama 2023

Agricultural product producer AMVAC Chemical Corporation has been sentenced to three years of probation and a $400,000 fine for violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the federal hazardous waste law.

According to court documents, AMVAC is a California corporation formed in 1945, which manufactures and distributes fungicide, defoliant, insecticide, herbicide, molluscicide, fumigant, and pesticide products. The company owned and operated a facility in Axis, Alabama, where it made pesticides to distribute and sell in the United States and other countries.

In 2006, AMVAC purchased the Thimet pesticide product line from another company. The active ingredient in Thimet was Phorate, which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identified as an acute hazardous waste under the RCRA. AMVAC sold and shipped Thimet in reusable containers that it would ship back to its production facility in Axis.

However, in 2015, AMVAC arranged for the return from Australia of 1,080 reusable containers that had been used for Thimet and contained Thimet residue with Phorate. The EPA had not authorized the reformulation of Phorate into a pesticide, but AMVAC directed its transporter to complete an import declaration form stating that the Thimet from Australia was ‘not registered’ with EPA and described disposal as the purpose for the importation into the United States from Australia.

The containers with waste Thimet arrived at the Port of Savannah in Georgia and were picked up by a transporter hired by AMVAC to move them to a warehouse in Saraland, Alabama, used by AMVAC. However, AMVAC did not notify its transporter that the containers held hazardous waste nor did AMVAC cause a hazardous waste manifest to be created for the transportation of the waste Thimet, in violation of RCRA.

Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Attorney Sean P. Costello for the Southern District of Alabama, and Acting Special Agent in Charge Leslie Carrol of EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division made the announcement. EPA investigated the case, and Senior Counsel Kris Dighe of the Environment and Natural Resources Division’s Environmental Crime Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael D. Anderson for the Southern District of Alabama prosecuted the case.

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