Westlake Chemical and Vinyls LLC have agreed to pay an $825,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fine — and have now resolved all compliance gaps.

The actions are part of a Consent Agreement and Final Order with the U.S. EPA Region 6 agreed upon in September to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act identified by the agency during a February 2018 investigation by the National Enforcement Initiative Center of EPA, according to an emailed statement from Joe Andrepont, principal-community and governmental affairs.

The CAFO mutually settled the alleged violations, without the adjudication of any issues of fact or law.

The Westlake settlement required the company to submit a performance testing plan and additional tests of two thermal oxidizers used to limit air emissions. The company must also submit to EPA a list of all pressure relief devices that are used for hazardous air pollutants and conduct monitoring of those devices for 10 months. It must additionally ensure that its startup, shutdown and malfunction plan complies with federal and state rules.

The settlement concluded that the plant’s startup/shutdown/malfunctions plan, written in 2011, wasn’t designed to minimize emissions using good air pollution practices.

Between February 2016 and February 2018, the company reported 107 unanticipated releases from release valves or rupture disc devices, but failed to monitor the devices within five days, as required by law, to assure they still weren’t releasing too much air pollution.