California Industrial Park Polluting Monterey Bay, Suit Says

摘要

An agricultural industrial park in California allegedly failed to report all of the potential pollutants leaving the property via stormwater, allowing contaminants to reach the Salinas River and Monterey Bay, an environmental conservation group said in federal district court. California Coastkeeper Alliance and two other environmental groups allege the industrial park left important details out of its application for a stormwater permit and didn't report adequate stormwater sampling results, according to a complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The Spreckels Industrial Park spans 150 acres across two adjacent addresses in Spreckels and Salinas, northeast of Monterey, Calif. The park is used for farm equipment maintenance, fabrication, warehousing, and storage, in addition to farm laborer housing, the complaint said. For part of each year, the park's drainage system allows stormwater to drain into the Salinas River, which flows into Monterey Bay. Both are waters of the U.S., the complaint said. Pollutants from the park's operations include fungicides, refrigeration fluids, fertilizers, insecticides, waste oil, metals, and sediment. The industrial park only sampled for oil and grease, pH levels, total organic carbon, and total suspended solids, according to the complaint.