(File Photo of the PennEnvironment Logo)
Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News
(Potter Township, PA) A possible state content decree that would order it to pay more than $2.6 million for repeated pollution of Raccoon Creek and the Ohio River is being faced by the owner of a former plastics plant in Monaca. The decree was filed on Wednesday by the Department of Environmental Protection, in conjunction with nonprofits Three Rivers Waterkeeper and PennEnvironment Inc., filed the decree Sept. 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh against BVPV Styrenics LLC and Styropek USA Inc. The consent decree that is proposed must be submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice for a review period of 45 days before it can be entered by the court and it may be viewed by requesting an informal file review through the website of the Department of Environmental Protection. If the decree is approved by the court, Styropek, which stopped operations at its Potter Township plant in January of 2025, would pay penalties and remediation costs and fund watershed rehabilitation and restoration projects as a requirement. Styropek would also pay $100,000 in civil penalties to the Department of Environmental Protection’s Clean Water Fund and $2.5 million for projects of environmental restoration in the Raccoon Creek and Ohio River watersheds. According to the Department of Environmental Protection, on October 18th, 2022, DEP inspectors observed plastic pellets on the ground at several locations at the Styropek facility in Potter Township. A follow-up survey revealed numerous pellets downstream of the facility’s outfalls along Raccoon Creek and the Ohio River on December 13th, 2022. DEP also issued Styropek a Notice of Violation for the unauthorized discharge of plastic pellets onto land and into Raccoon Creek ten days later on December 23rd, 2022.Styropek must take significant steps to stop future pollution under the proposed decree, which includes installing new turbidity curtains at the lagoons of the facility in Potter Township, implementing stricter monitoring and stormwater control procedures and upgrading wastewater treatment with cloth media filters and other improvements. According to the Beaver County Times, of the $2.5 million restoration funds:
- $2 million would support the Raccoon Creek Plastic Remediation Fund, which will investigate and clean up polystyrene pellet pollution in the watershed’s sediment, water and banks. Styropek would be responsible for carrying out remediation under DEP oversight.
- $500,000, along with any unspent remediation funds, would create the Raccoon Creek Benefit Fund, administered by the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds. This fund would support projects that restore, preserve, and protect water quality in the Raccoon Creek watershed and nearby areas of the Ohio River watershed.