A Neville Island cement company was assessed a civil penalty of $7,150 for what the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) described as an open-air release of cement following an equipment breakdown.
Kosmos Cement Co., a subsidiary of Kentucky-based Eagle Materials that operates a terminal facility in the township, failed to report an Oct. 5, 2020 valve failure that spurred the emissions event – one that came to the department’s attention thanks to a visual emissions complaint.
ACHD said that wasn’t the only way the company violated county air pollution regulations: Kosmos also failed to submit mandated breakdown reports to the department. According to a March 5 enforcement order posted on the health department’s website on Tuesday night, Kosmos was required to submit an initial report within 60 minutes of the breakdown.
It also failed to submit a follow-up report that was due to ACHD within seven days of the incident.
But that’s not all: The enforcement order indicates that Kosmos also failed to submit a timely and complete semi-annual report regarding emissions data from Jan. 1, 2020, through June 30, 2020.
“Kosmos indicated that the monitoring data was lost and nonrecoverable and was attributed to the transfer of ownership that occurred on March 7, 2020,” the enforcement order reads.
It should be noted that a $650 penalty was assessed because of Kosmos’ low degree of cooperation, which was described as, “reluctant, slow, took some corrective action but not all reasonable action.”