Even today there are so many homeowners and companies hanging onto their old R-22 systems. Sometimes it takes a heated negotiation just to convince a homeowner to switch from R-22 over to R-410A. Now imagine trying to convince a billion dollar company to switch all of their systems away from R-22. You think it would be an easier discussion. You would think that the company would want to get the obsolete units out of rotation and start using a more climate friendly solution.
Trident EPA leak restriction violations
Well folks, this wasn’t the case with Trident Seafoods out of Seattle, Washington. Trident is one of the largest seafood processing companies in the northwest and Alaska. Between the years 2009 through 2016 Trident violated the Environmental Protection Agency’s leak restrictions on Ozone depleting refrigerants. Leaks in their R-22 systems went untreated for years. They also failed to document services and repairs on two-hundred and eighty-nine separate occasions. On top of that they used uncertified technicians and inadequate recovery tooling.
Because of their lack of maintenance Trident was directly responsible for leaking over two-hundred thousand pounds of R-22 into the atmosphere. These leaks occurred on their various fishing and transport ships.
It was announced today that the Environmental Protection Agency and Trident Seafoods had come to a preliminary agreement. Trident would pay a nine-hundred thousand dollar fine for violating the Clean Air Act. They would also pay for twenty-three million dollars worth of retrofits to prevent these incidents from occurring again. Quite a lot of expense and fines all because this company didn’t follow proper regulations or that they didn’t want to invest in new refrigerant systems.
As a result of this ruling Trident will be retiring or retrofitting twenty-three r-22 systems across fourteen ships. These retrofits will remove one-hundred thousand pounds of r-22. The removal of all of this R-22 is the equivalent of one-hundred and forty-three thousand passenger cars being removed from the roads.
Along with the retrofitting Trident Seafoods will conduct routine leak inspections and fix any leaks in a timely manner in accordance to EPA standards. They will also have a third party auditor to review their leak inspection procedures. This way we don’t have a repeat.
EPA regulations state that owners or operators of industrial refrigerant equipment that contains over fifty pounds of ozone depleting refrigerants have their leaks repaired within thirty days. Along with that, these leak repairs have to be documented in full. Lastly, only 608 certified technicians are able to open and work on these systems.
Conclusion
While this settlement is still subject to public comment and court approval it is easy to see the type of punishment companies can receive if they fail to comply with the Clean Air Act and the EPA standards.I’m actually surprised the fine and repercussions wasn’t higher. The amount of refrigerant that was leaked is staggering. Rather Trident thinks it or not, they got off easy.