MONTEREY – In a settlement with the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, Monterey Mushroom, Inc., has agreed to pay $1.2 million for unauthorized wastewater discharges to Elkhorn Slough tributaries.
Monterey Mushrooms was found to have discharged a combined total of about 4.6 million gallons of process wastewater and/or polluted stormwater from two mushroom-growing facilities located in Royal Oaks into the tributary between January and April 2017, according to a press release from the State Water Resources Board.
“We work hard with dischargers to prevent these types of spills,” said Dr. Jean-Pierre Wolff, chair of the Central Coast Water Board, in the release. “We take these violations and threats to the environment very seriously. This settlement demonstrates our collaborative commitment with dischargers to protect and restore our region’s waters.”
Monterey Mushroom, Inc., and its wholly-owned subsidiary Spawn Mate, Inc., agreed to the $1,169,425 settlement. The family-owned business provides locally grown mushrooms to grocery stores, restaurants, food manufacturers and institutions nationwide. Its 4,000 U.S. employees grow more than 200 million pounds of fresh mushrooms annually at nine Monterey Mushrooms farms located across North America.
The discharged wastewater from the two Royal Oaks operations contained ammonia, excessive nutrients, and suspended and floating material, which can harm water quality and aquatic habitat.
All process wastewater, including stormwater commingled with it, is required to be placed and contained in the facility’s wastewater ponds.
Monterey Mushroom issued a statement in response to the settlement and said it has a long history of being a responsible member of the community and is committed to the highest standards of environmental compliance.
“This dialogue and settlement stem from the deluge of catastrophic winter storms of late 2016 and early 2017, the same time Coyote Creek overflowed and flooded areas within Santa Clara County, and the same timeframe that the Oroville Dam crisis occurred,” said the Monterey Mushroom statement. “Our farms in Monterey County were inundated by these record storms and rainwater volume, during the events alleged. To ensure no further issues, the company collaborated with county and state agents and spent millions of dollars in facility improvements, as well as engineering the separation of stormwater and process water.”
The settlement agreement says although Monterey Mushroom, Inc., has no previous formal enforcement actions in the Central Coast Region, the order details other enforcement actions against the company, such as, “the San Francisco Bay Water Board issued a June 26, 2001 Cleanup and Abatement Order for, among other things, unauthorized discharges of process wastewater to drainage channels and to an unlined percolation pond at (Monterey Mushroom, Inc.’s) facility in Morgan Hill.”
Monterey Mushrooms said it intends to continue to work cooperatively with the Regional Board and county and state agents in the future.
Under the settlement agreement, $599,775 of the settlement funds will pay for a supplemental environmental project, which consists of a pilot project for household-level water treatment for up to 20 disadvantaged community households in unincorporated areas of northern Monterey County where residents rely on groundwater wells with high levels of 1,2,3-trichloropropane. The objective would be to effectively treat 1,2,3-TCP to levels below the drinking water standard.
1,2,3- TCP is a chlorinated hydrocarbon with high chemical stability. It is a man-made chemical found at industrial or hazardous waste sites. It has been used as a cleaning and degreasing solvent and also is associated with pesticide products. It is known to cause cancer in laboratory animals and is reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.
The company said it is pleased that it and the California Regional Water Quality Control Board – Central Coast Region have been able to bring closure with this agreement.
