NORTH YARMOUTH — A Sligo Road furniture restoration business has been fined $16,000 by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection for violating hazardous waste standards.
Marc Carlson, owner and operator of Finely Restored – which according to its website has been refinishing, restoring and repairing furniture for three decades – was found to be in violation after a DEP inspection last year.
The 649 Sligo Road business generates hazardous waste that includes ignitable and corrosive wastes, as well as “wastes contaminated with ‘f-listed’ constituents and heavy metals resulting from furniture stripping and refinishing,” according to a recent DEP administrative consent agreement.
Consequently the business is subject to the state’s Hazardous Waste, Septage and Solid Waste Management Act, along with DEP’s hazardous waste management rules.
According to DEP’s enforcement report, Carlson’s violations included failure to determine whether generated wastes were hazardous, failure to mark hazardous waste containers with the words “hazardous waste” along with the start date of its accumulation, not keeping the containers closed, and storing them in an underground tank.
The business also discharged hazardous waste without a licence to do so, failed to immediately report waste discharges, and failure to remove the discharges, the report stated.
Once DEP became involved, the business hired a contractor to remove the wastes and do sampling and analysis of the underground tank’s contents. It also submitted both a subsurface investigation report to DEP concerning groundwater and soils around the tank, and a written response to DEP that outlines the corrective measures taken.
Finely Restored agreed to pay a civil fine of $16,000, and agreed to prevent hazardous waste from entering the site’s underground holding tanks, according to DEP.
Now, “everything is perfectly fine, absolutely,” Carlson said Nov. 18. “I had to mark a couple of things better. … If I take paint off something, I’ll scrape it off and put it into a one-gallon can. I can’t let that sit there without a cover, apparently; I didn’t know that.”
DEP also issued the business a notice of violation in 2004, but no penalty was associated with that notice, according to the department.
Alex Lear can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 113 or alear@theforecaster.net. Follow him on Twitter: @learics.
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