Frustrated with the lack of response to its fines, EPA deputy general manager Lowell Alik said he sought help of the Attorney General’s Office, which has turned up the heat on two government entities and one business that have violated environmental laws.
With enforcement action historically lax — only a handful of environmental cases have been prosecuted by the AGO in the more than 20-year existence of the EPA — agencies in the Marshall Islands routinely ignore citations and fines from the EPA for polluting activities. But this week, the AGO stepped up enforcement action for the EPA.
The AG has put the Marshalls Energy Company, the private fuel company ALRO and the Ministry of Health on notice that they need to pay or risk court action.
Acting AG Tubosoye Brown and assistant attorney general Laurence Edwards, II, told Marshalls Energy Company General Manager David Paul that they were “disappointed to realize, through a representation to EPA, that MEC is yet to pay the penalty and is continuing the illegal activity of transferring fuel without the presence of EPA officers. We advise you to immediately pay the penalty imposed on MEC.”
The Ministry of Health has been hit with numerous violations largely over its handling of hazardous hospital wastes. Brown and Edwards said EPA had imposed a penalty of $10,000 for environmental violations on the part of the hospital, including the hospital mixing dangerous medical waste with regular garbage that was dumped in the city’s landfill. “In its meeting with us, EPA officers insist that prior to the imposition of this sanction, all their written invitations to have dialogue with the hospital authorities were never acknowledged and that the violations of the sanctions violations are continuing,” the Brown and Edwards said. They advised the Ministry to “immediately pay the penalty imposed on the hospital and to kindly advise your nurses and other staff in the wards to desist from sending medical waste to the Majuro dump.”
EPA cited the Ministry of Health for illegal storage of hazardous waste that in June was strewn outside the back area of the hospital.
