A Sanford, Maine, company that crushes cars faces thousands of dollars in fines from charges that it spilled oil and hazardous waste at a half-dozen sites around southern Maine. Lin-Cor Environmental has been charged with unlicensed discharge of hazardous matter and hazardous waste, unlicensed operation of a hazardous-waste storage facility, unlicensed transportation of hazardous waste, violation of hazardous-waste management rules, and violation of oil discharge prevention rules. The charges span several years in Arundel, Limerick, Parsonsfield and Brownfield, Maine.
The state is seeking corrective action and reimbursement of the roughly $4,500 that it spent cleaning up spills. The eight charges, filed in York County Superior Court in Alfred, carry fines of $100 to $25,000 per day.
Lin-Cor Environmental's owner Linda Corbin said that her mobile car-crushing business has been unfairly singled out and that state regulations are vague concerning who is responsible for handling waste from discarded automobiles.
About 80 percent of the 50,000 tons of scrap metal that her company processes each year in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts comes from automobiles.
She said her company has had no problems in the other states where it operates and Lin-Cor's practices are no different from those of any other mobile crushing company in Maine.
The state says Lin-Cor caused oil and hazardous-waste spills and violated hazardous-waste storage, handling and transportation laws from 2002 through last summer while crushing cars at a host of locations throughout the state.
Dennis Harnish, the assistant attorney general who is prosecuting the case, said Lin-Cor is probably not the only crushing company that is improperly disposing of hazardous waste.
He said car-crushing companies are not licensed by the state and automobile salvage yards are regulated at the municipal level, which has left the industry not very well regulated.
Peter Carney of the state Department of Environmental Protection said discussions are under way to better regulate the industry.
Corbin said the law does not specify who is responsible for disposal of hazardous materials from discarded automobiles. She has sought help from state Sen. Richard Nass, R-Acton, who is introducing legislation that she hopes will clarify who is responsible.
Corbin said that once a crushing company gets the battery, it may have leaked dry but the company winds up paying the $95 to dispose of the battery. That makes her lose money, because each crushed vehicle averages only about $70 when it is sold as scrap metal. She proposes that insurance companies pay the cost.
She said current methods of removing hazardous waste from discarded automobiles are far from complete. But to dispose of all the waste would cost hundreds of dollars more, and no one wants to tackle the issue of who would pay, she said.
Corbin said she is scheduled to meet with the Attorney General's Office next week to negotiate a settlement. Portland Press Herald