Mike Davidson Enterprises, LLC, (MDE) a resource recovery and recycling facility in Camden, was served by the Delaware Department of Justice and the Attorney General’s Office with the state’s first Chronic Violator Complaint.
The complaint seeks $8.3 million in restitution to cover the costs of loading, transportation, and proper disposal of the more than 100,000 tons of material on the premises at Mike Davidson Enterprises, LLC and imposes an administrative penalty of up to $10,000 per day for each violation against MDE as a chronic violator.
The Chronic Violator Complaint was served after MDE continually “demonstrated an unwillingness to comply with a resource recovery permit issued by the Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Section, and engaged in a pattern of willful neglect and reckless disregard” for DNREC’s regulatory programs, a release stated.
The chronic violator complaint states that compliance violations at MDE dating back to January 2010 – two months after MDE received a resource recovery permit from DNREC – have been disregarded by the facility. Fourteen more compliance assessments by DNREC, through May 2012, all showed continuing violations at the facility. A cease and desist order issued n June 2012 required that the company take immediate action regarding contamination of the site by arsenic and chromium.
Two months later, a Secretary’s Order and Notice of Conciliation was issued by DNREC directing MDE to cease distributing its contaminated mulch product, to remove the contaminated mulch from the premises, and to provide assurance that the site was not contaminated by excessive levels of arsenic, chromium, or PCB’s.
The state’s determination was upheld. A Secretary’s Order issued April 29, 2013 upheld suspension of MDE’s resource recovery permit. Three months later the permit was revoked. The state claimed Davidson abandoned the Camden facility, leaving massive piles of waste behind. Last month the waste piles caught fire and burned, then smoldered for days.
The state claims Davidson has had the resources to run the operation cleanly and according to his own plan and the terms of the permit, but has chosen instead to retain such funds for his own use.
