Conservationists plan pellet pollution lawsuit in South Carolina, on heels of Texas case

South Carolina conservation groups are threatening legal action against resin distributor Frontier Logistics LP over pellet pollution in the Charleston Harbor, following a similar lawsuit against a Texas plastics plant.

The Southern Environmental Law Center and other groups allege Frontier has been violating the Clean Water Act by not controlling pellet discharge from its operations at Charleston's busy port, which is experiencing a surge in plastic resin exports.

On Oct. 28, they issued formal notice of plans for a federal lawsuit, saying that state government investigations and their own monitoring found "widespread" problems.

Frontier, based in LaPorte, Texas, did not respond to a request for comment, but it offered a nuanced response in an August letter to state officials after a July resin spill on a nearby beach — an incident that first brought public concern and led South Carolina officials to look at Frontier's facility.

The company said many of the pellets in that particular beach spill were not materials that Frontier handled, but it also acknowledged some failures in its pellet containment and said it was making improvements and "remains committed" to zero pellet loss.

Frontier CEO George Cook noted in that Aug. 29 letter that at least four other businesses in the Charleston area do the same kind of work preparing pellets for export or distribution, suggesting they could also be sources of plastic nurdles in the environment.

State officials identified Frontier as a source in their report on the July spill.

"Frontier differs with the findings in the [state report] in general because the findings omit that the pellets reported on Sullivan's Island Beach also included many pellets that did not even resemble pellets handled by Frontier," Cooke said.

Environmental groups, though, said concerns extend beyond the July spill. They say evidence shows Frontier has not properly contained its resin, and they argue their legal approach echoes that of Texas groups that reached a $50 million settlement last month in their own federal lawsuit against a Formosa Plastics plant.

"It was our hope that [the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control] would hold Frontier accountable for this pollution, but that does not appear to be the case," said Laura Cantral, executive director of the Charleston-based South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, in a statement.

"Fortunately, the Clean Water Act allows private citizens to bring a lawsuit when a state agency like DHEC has not — or will not — protect our iconic waterways," she said.

Cantral's group, along with SELC and Charleston Waterkeeper, filed a 60-day notice, which is required before bringing a private clean water lawsuit.

They pointed to a report from state investigators, uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act request, that notes "plastic accumulation observed throughout the facility" and openings in Frontier's plant directly over the water.

Frontier, however, said that it has never had a spill at that Charleston facility, which has processed more than 300 million pounds of pellets for export and distribution since it opened in 2017.

The company said in its letter, released in the SELC complaint, that its employees worked cleaning up the July spill, on Sullivan's Island Beach, for a week with contractors hired by the local port authority.

It said that many of the pellets found were not materials it handled. But Cook also wrote that after DHEC inspectors came to Frontier's facility on July 19, the firm identified problems and made improvements.

"Frontier has since improved its housekeeping procedures and physical barriers," he wrote. "Although Frontier had pellet handling and cleaning procedures, those procedures were not then being followed adequately, possibly due to a change in supervisors and uncompleted training.

"Frontier recognizes it is important to guard against the potential of a spill," he said, noting that while it belongs to the industry's Operation Clean Sweep program, it was in process of developing enhanced procedures.

The environmental groups, however, were skeptical about the company's plans, presenting a report from an expert saying they "appear insufficient to prevent ongoing spills."

That expert, engineering consultant Aiza F. Jose Sanchez, testified earlier this year in a similar pellet pollution case brought against Formosa Plastics USA in Texas.

The environmental groups cite two primary pieces of evidence in their allegations: a state DHEC investigation that issued a "notice of alleged violation" to Frontier in July but did not fine the company, and work by the Waterkeeper organization documenting pellets near the facility.

Their filing included photographs from inside the Frontier facility, taken by state inspectors and obtained under open records laws.

"We have evidence that leads us to believe Frontier's plastic pellets continue to spill into our harbor," said Andrew Wunderley, head of Charleston Waterkeeper. "We find pellets everywhere we look, from Capers Island to Waterfront Park downtown. And, at the sites we sample week after week, we continue to find consistently high numbers of pellets."

"Frontier must be held accountable for polluting our harbor, beaches, and waterways with its plastic pellets, especially when we have no state or local safeguards protecting our waterways from plastic pellet pollution," he said.

An SELC statement said Frontier is the only Charleston-area company packaging pellets on the water, and is the only company cited by DHEC as responsible for the July spill. It said that "the largest densities of pellets have been found at sites closest to Frontier Logistics."

Charleston's ports are becoming an increasingly important resin export center, according to the South Carolina Ports Authority.

In a June news release announcing the groundbreaking on Frontier's new $35.5 million resin packaging and shipping facility in North Charleston, SPCA said resin exports from its ports have grown 55 percent since 2011.

"Charleston is the emerging pivot point for both export[ed] and import[ed] U.S. resin, and the Frontier Logistics expansion is a key component of the port's planned above-market volume growth," said Jim Newsome, SPCA president and CEO.

The Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston reported in June that the region's ports accounted for 7 percent of total U.S. resin exports last year, and that resin exports through the ports were up 30 percent in the first four months of this year.