Environmental groups and the state Department of Environmental Protection have reached a $2.6 million settlement with a plastic manufacturer for polluting a tributary of the Ohio River.
Three Rivers Waterkeeper and PennEnvironment, along with the DEP, announced a settlement Thursday with Houston-based polystyrene maker Styropek and its facility, BVPV Styrenics LLC, in Beaver County.
In 2022 and 2023, the Waterkeeper group monitored the Ohio River near the newly built Shell cracker plant in Monaca, looking for nurdles, which are tiny plastic pellets. And they found a lot of them.
“Not only would you find it in the water, you’d find it on the banks as well,” said David Mazur, executive director of PennEnvironment. “So, the vegetation on the stream banks would be coated with tiny pieces of plastic, these pellets.”
But the nurdles weren’t coming from the Shell plant. Instead, they were traced to the Styropek plant’s wastewater pipe at Raccoon Creek, near the confluence with the Ohio River.
“You could literally sit there in a boat and look down, and it almost looks like a fountain, like there’s that pressure and it’s pushing these little beads of plastic to the surface,” Mazur said.
Nurdles found near the Styropek facility along Raccoon Creek. Photos courtesy of Three Rivers Waterkeeper
Two DEP inspections in 2022 found plastic pellets on the ground at several locations near the Styropek facility, and downstream of its outfalls, for which the state issued the company a Notice of Violation.
In late 2023, PennEnvironment and Three Rivers Waterkeeper filed a Clean Water Act lawsuit. More recently, the DEP joined them.
Pending approval by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, $2 million of the settlement will support the Raccoon Creek Plastic Remediation Fund to investigate and clean up polystyrene pellet pollution in the sediment, water and on the banks of Raccoon Creek. “Styropek will be responsible for carrying out remediation under DEP oversight,” said a state press release.
In addition, $500,000, along with any unspent remediation funds, will create the Raccoon Creek Benefit Fund, administered by the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds, to support water quality projects in the Raccoon Creek watershed and nearby areas of the Ohio River watershed. The remaining $100,000 in civil penalties will go to the Pennsylvania Clean Water Fund.
“Moving forward, the company must completely redesign its stormwater collection and treatment systems to capture all of its pellet waste,” according to an email from PennEnvironment and the Waterkeeper. “Also, Styropek must install cutting-edge monitoring technology at every stormwater outfall to track whether pellets escape the property.”
The company could not be reached for comment.
The environmental groups said the nurdles are dangerous because plastic doesn’t degrade in the environment, it attracts chemicals in the water, and can harm wildlife if ingested.
“A lot of people recreate at Raccoon Creek,” Mazur said. “The vast majority of them, I would assume all of them, go there to experience nature and nature’s beauty. They don’t go there to experience plastic pollution.”
