Heritage-Crystal Clean, LLC Settlement Information Sheet

On December 7, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), along with the state of Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) and the state of Indiana announced a settlement with Heritage-Crystal Clean, LLC (HCC) to resolve violations of requirements under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) for management of hazardous waste, as well as a violation of used oil management requirements, at current or former HCC facilities located in Indianapolis, Indiana; Shreveport, Louisiana; Atlanta, Georgia; Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania; and Denver, Colorado. These violations were observed during inspections conducted by EPA, LDEQ, and Indiana.

This settlement furthers EPA’s goal to offer the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards to all Americans. The five facilities identified above are located within communities with potential environmental justice concerns. These communities will benefit from the improved controls and new work practices that will be implemented at the facilities as required under the settlement. The new controls and practices will reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and reduce risk of exposure to hazardous wastes managed at these facilities.

In the proposed settlement agreement, HCC is committed to pay civil penalties totaling $1,162,500 and implement various measures to ensure that its facilities will not treat, store, or dispose of used parts washing solvents that qualify as hazardous waste unless and until HCC receives a hazardous waste permit authorizing it to manage hazardous waste. Plaintiffs estimate that the compliance measures required under the proposed settlement will cost at least $1,628,502.

• Overview Heritage-Crystal Clean, LLC
• Violations
• Injunctive Relief
• Environmental Benefits
• Civil Penalty
• Comment Period
• Contact

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Overview Heritage-Crystal Clean, LLC

HCC, headquartered in Illinois, was formed in 1999 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Heritage-Crystal Clean, Inc. HCC’s business includes solvent-based parts-cleaning services and used oil collection and re-refining.

HCC owns and/or operates numerous facilities throughout the United States, including approximately 105 facilities that are referred to as “branch facilities” and several others that are referred to as “distribution hubs.” HCC uses the branch and distribution hub facilities as part of its product distribution network, as well as for consolidation or transfer of used solvent and used oil that HCC collects from its customers.

Violations

In January 2022, a 21-count complaint was filed against HCC for violations under RCRA and applicable state law. The complaint states that in the course of providing parts washing services to customers throughout the United States, HCC accepted some used solvent that qualified as hazardous waste but did not transport and manage those solvents in accordance with applicable hazardous waste management requirements.

The complaint also states that HCC:

1.  Transported hazardous waste without required hazardous waste manifests;
2. Stored hazardous waste at various HCC facilities without required permits;
3.  Failed to make required hazardous waste determinations after mixing used solvents from different parts washing customers;
4. Failed to comply with certain requirements for reducing air emissions from certain hazardous waste tanks and equipment; and
5. Failed to maintain adequate secondary containment for certain hazardous waste tanks.

Additionally, some of the used solvents managed by HCC were hazardous waste because the company needed to subject the material to systematic gravity separation to make the used material suitable for resale. Plaintiffs contend HCC evaded hazardous waste requirements by improperly claiming that the unusable solvents were products instead of wastes.

The complaint also states that HCC failed to comply with used oil management requirements at its Shreveport, Louisiana facility.

There is also an Indiana state-only claim related to HCC’s state solid waste permit which prohibits HCC from accepting hazardous waste at the Indianapolis facility.

Injunctive Relief

As part of the settlement, HCC must perform compliance measures at multiple HCC facilities to achieve and maintain compliance under RCRA. All used solvent that HCC accepts from parts washing customers must be transported to designated HCC Waste Screening facilities, where the used solvent must be managed in accordance with the settlement’s compliance provisions, including:

1. Waste screening program for used 142 solvent:

• HCC must submit a sampling and analysis plan that meets certain criteria for approval. Once approved, the company must adhere to it when conducting its sampling of new 142 solvent customers, random monthly drum sampling, and sampling of consolidation containers.
• All prospective small quantity generator (SQG) and large quantity generator (LQG) customers will have the first drum of used 142 solvent sampled and analyzed. Customers with failed samples may not be accepted into the 142 solvent program. To pursue customer acceptance into the 142 solvent program after a failed sample, HCC must resample and document two consecutive non-hazardous samples from the customer.
• Each HCC Waste Screening facility is required to sample a specified number of randomly selected customer drums of used 142 solvent per month. Initially, HCC must sample at least 10 drums per month at each facility, but required number of drum samples may increase or decrease over time depending on the number of samples found to exhibit hazardous waste characteristics. If any drum sampled fails, then HCC must manage such drum as hazardous waste in accordance with the relevant hazardous waste management program.
• HCC is required at each of the facilities to sample consolidation containers (e.g., railcars). Initially, HCC must sample 40 consolidation containers and all must be determined as non-hazardous before HCC may decrease sampling frequency. If any consolidation container fails, then HCC must manage such consolidation container as hazardous waste in accordance with the relevant hazardous waste management program.  

  2.  Elimination of gravity separation of used 106 solvent:

HCC may not process used 106 solvent by gravity separation, any form of distillation, or any other method, in order to meet customer product specifications or acceptance criteria. In addition, HCC may not place used 106 solvent that is destined for legitimate reuse in tanks at designated facilities, such as the Shreveport and Indianapolis facilities.

  3. Permit and interim measures at Indianapolis facility:

HCC is required to apply for a RCRA permit at its Indianapolis, Indiana facility. Pending issuance of the permit and construction of certain hazardous waste management units, the settlement requires HCC to implement specified interim measures at the facility, including frequent inspections of tanks and containers, as well as elimination of open venting of tanks containing used 142 solvent.

The settlement includes numerous other provisions, including provisions that require HCC to distribute educational materials to parts washing customers in specified circumstances, and provisions for HCC to retain a third party to conduct audits at designated HCC facilities.

Environmental Benefits 

The settlement requires HCC to implement new hazardous waste management and sampling practices that will ensure that HCC’s used 142 solvent waste stream is non-hazardous and the used 106 solvent waste stream is directly reused and therefore falls within a recycling exception to RCRA. EPA estimates that these measures, if adhered to, will eliminate the generation of over 17 million pounds of hazardous waste.

Additionally, as part of a national enforcement effort, EPA is focused on reducing hazardous air emissions from facilities that manage volatile organic hazardous waste streams. As described above, this settlement prohibits HCC from storing used 106 solvent in tanks at the Shreveport and Indianapolis facilities. This will prevent the release of air emissions from multiple tanks HCC previously used at these facilities to either conduct gravity separation of the used 106 solvent or store such solvent before sending offsite for gravity separation which will reduce air emissions and benefit the surrounding communities.

Civil Penalty

HCC will pay a civil penalty of $1,162,500 to resolve this matter, divided as follows:

• $712,880.50 to the United States,
• $155,200 to LDEQ, and
• $294,419.50 to Indiana (includes $50,000 for state-only claim)

Comment Period

The proposed settlement, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, is subject to a federal 30-day public comment period and final court approval. Information on submitting comment is available on DOJ’s ENRD Proposed Consent Decree website.

Contacts for Further Information

Kimberly Chavez
Waste Enforcement Branch
Office of Civil Enforcement
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20460
(202) 564-4298
chavez.kimberly@epa.gov