Maine boat yard agrees to settlement in Clean Water Act case

Maine-based Billings Diesel and Marine Services Inc. recently agreed to a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency that will see the company bring its operations into compliance with the Clean Water Act and pay a fine of $41,000.

The federal Clean Water Act requires industrial facilities like shipyards and marinas to prevent pollution into nearby waterways by controlling process wastewater discharges and stormwater discharges. According to the EPA, Billings discharged wastewater from boat-washing operations into a nearby shipping channel, the Deer Isle Thorofare, which connects the waters around Mount Desert Island to the Atlantic Ocean in the area around Stonington, Maine. The wastewater discharged by Billings into the waterway might have contained sediments, metals and industrial waste. These contaminants can impact both water quality and nearby marine habitats.

Per the settlement terms, Billings has already taken steps to bring its discharges into compliance with the Clean Water Act. The company will also send the agency videos of its bottom wash capture process, a new measure that fulfills the agency’s Next Gen principles and allows the EPA to remotely verify that Billing’s is efficiently capturing discharge from its boat-washing operations.