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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - March 9, 2000
00-033
CONTACT: Jani Gilbert, Public Information Manager, 509-456-4464; pager, 509-622-1289
SPOKANE -- B&G Farms, Inc. of Grant County has been fined $10,000 for a fire in a mint slug pile in January.
Today's penalty follows a $25,000 penalty issued in late January for a similar fire last November that led to a string of injury accidents along the Beverly Burke Road.
Mike Brown of Royal City owns B&G Farms, Inc. The company had received technical advice and warnings from Ecology inspectors several times over the past decade that the mint slug piles needed to be managed to avoid spontaneous combustion.
Mint slugs are the solid wastes generated after distilling mint oil from leaves.
The fire, reported by a citizen on Jan. 10, was located adjacent to Road "P," about a mile east of Beverly Burke Rd. Although the land belonged to Wayne Piper, it had been leased to Mike Brown for "temporary" mint-slug storage.
The fire is believed to have started during the first week of January and it was still smoldering on Jan. 20. Citizens complained of smoke at their homes, down wind from the fire.
The November 1999 fire caused three separate car accidents because a dense plume of smoke restricted visibility along the Beverly Burke Rd. A Royal City man died later as a result of one of the car accidents.
B&G Farms, Inc. may file an "application for relief" from the $10,000 penalty with Ecology within 15 days, or may file an appeal within 30 days with the state's Pollution Control Hearings Board.
Ecology denied Brown's application for relief for the penalty involving the November 1999 fire. He did not file an appeal with the Pollution Control Hearings Board.
Copyright © Washington State Department of Ecology. See http://www.ecy.wa.gov/copyright.html.
