Wal-mart guilty of dumping hazardous waste

Wal-Mart Stores settled a decadelong investigation into its hazardous waste practices Tuesday when it pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to pay $81 million, the Environmental Protection Agency said.

In cases filed in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Wal-Mart pleaded guilty to six counts of violating the Clean Water Act by illegally handling and disposing of hazardous materials at its retail stores across the United States. The company also pleaded guilty in Kansas City, Mo., to violating federal law governing the handling of pesticides returned by customers.

When combined with previous actions brought by California and Missouri, Wal-Mart will pay more than $110 million to resolve cases alleging violations of environmental laws.

“This case is as big as Wal-Mart is,” says Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Johns, chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section in Los Angeles. “This conduct is alleged to have taken place at every single Walmart in the country.”

Wal-Mart failed to train employees on hazardous waste management and disposal practices at the store level, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The practices started at an unknown date and continued until January 2006. That meant hazardous wastes were either discarded improperly — including being put into municipal trash bins or, if a liquid, poured into the local sewer system — or they were transported without proper safety documentation to product-return centers throughout the USA.

“By improperly handling hazardous waste, pesticides and other materials in violation of federal laws, Wal-Mart put the public and the environment at risk,” said Ignacia Moreno, assistant attorney general for Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Wal-Mart admitted trucking more than 2 million pounds of regulated pesticides and other products from return centers to a recycling facility in Neosho, Mo., between July 2006 and February 2008. Prosecutors say products were processed for reuse and resale, but lax oversight caused regulated pesticides to be mixed and offered for sale, violating federal law.