The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality says Formosa Plastics Corp. USA's discharge violations are outside its water rights jurisdiction despite it being the authority FPC USA was ordered to report violations to in a 2019 settlement.
"The Water Rights Permitting program did not consider FPC USA's discharges in making its decision" on a water-use permit for the Lavaca Navidad River Authority to build a reservoir on FPC USA's property in Point Comfort, Texas, Victoria Cann, media relations specialist at the TCEQ, told Plastics News in an emailed statement. "Issues related to discharges are outside TCEQ's water rights jurisdiction."
In 2019, FPC USA agreed to pay a $50 million fine to settle a Clean Water Act civil lawsuit over plastic pellet pollution from the Point Comfort facility. As part of the settlement, the company agreed to a zero-discharge initiative of plastic pellets and powders from the facility. It also agreed to report plastic discharge violations to the TCEQ.
Since June 2021, FPC USA has faced 579 violations of its settlement agreement, resulting in fines of about $15 million, a Feb. 27 news release by Netherlands-based environmental group Friends of the Earth said.
"TCEQ is very aware that Formosa has had … Clean Water violations," Diane Wilson of the San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper and the International Monitor Formosa Plastics Alliance, who filed the lawsuit, told Plastics News.
"A company's history of violations and infractions have always been a part of any hearing [or] public meeting that we have had with TCEQ over a permit," Wilson said. "I assure you it will also be a part of our contested case hearing against this new water use permit that will primarily benefit Formosa Plastics, Texas."