Wastewater Enforcement: Mississippi Commission on Environmental Quality and Heidelberg Petroleum Refinery Enter into Agreed Order

The Mississippi Commission on Environmental Quality (“MCEQ”) and Hunt Southland Refining Company LLC (“Hunt”) entered into a November 18th Agreed Order (“AO”) addressing alleged violations of a Clean Water Act National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) Permit. See Order No. 7385 24.

The AO provides that Hunt owns and operates a wastewater treatment facility at its petroleum refinery in Jones County, Mississippi.

The following violations of the NPDES Permit are stated to have been identified by letters dated June 18th and November 5th which include:

• Violation of the effluent Carbonaceous Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) discharge limitations during the January and February 2024 monitoring periods.
• Violation of the Total Ammonia Nitrogen discharge limitations during the January, February, and March 2024 monitoring periods.
• Violation of the Sulfide discharge limitations during the January and September 2024 monitoring periods. 
• Violation of the effluent Total Phenolic Compounds discharge limitations during the January 2024 monitoring period.
• Violation of the effluent Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) discharge limitations during the January and February 2024 monitoring periods.
• Violation of the Total Zinc discharge limitations during the January 2024 monitoring period.
• Violation of the Total Recoverable Aluminum discharge limitation during the January 2024 monitoring period.
• Violation of the Oil & Grease discharge limitations during the January 2024 monitoring period.
• Violation of the Total Suspended Solids discharge limitations during the January and February 2024 monitoring periods.

The AO states that Hunt notified the Missouri Department of Environmental Quality (“MDEQ”) on February 28th that a tanker truck containing approximately 5,000 gallons of anti-strip additive was mistakenly unloaded into a crude oil tank on January 6th. The anti-strip additive entered the wastewater treatment system causing a significant upset of the system and resulting in the violations reported on the January 2024 Discharge Monitoring Reports. Further, Hunt asserted that 662 truck loads of wastewater were shipped offsite for processing at another refinery since February 19th. The system is stated to have been reseeded multiple times between February 28th and July 10th and the sump and Hydrasep at the facility were thoroughly cleaned on July 5th .

The Hunt facility subsequently demonstrated compliance with the discharge limitations required by the NPDES Permit on Discharge Monitoring Reports submitted to the NetDMR system for April through August 2024 monitoring periods.

The AO assesses a civil penalty of $75,000.00.

A copy of the AO can be downloaded here.