Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Technical contact: John Thomas (218) 723-4928 Media contact: Anne Perry Moore (218) 723-2356 Duluth. Minn. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. agreed to pay a $40,000 civil penalty to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) for allegedly violating a stormwater permit. The company will also pay $20,000 to the South St. Louis Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) for stormwater improvements in the Miller Creek watershed. The violations stem from the failure of Wal-Mart's Hermantown, Minn. store to comply with its 2003 permit requiring the use of a stormwater pond to adequately filter, treat and cool the store's parking lot and rooftop runoff before releasing it to Miller Creek, a state-designated trout stream. MPCA water quality inspection staff discovered the violations in November 2005, while reviewing the store's required annual stormwater report. Staff determined sediment had plugged the pond's five filtration trenches and caused the system's failure. As a result, Wal-Mart has corrected the problem and replaced the trenches' filtering materials. The SWCD will add its portion of the penalty to an existing MPCA grant earmarked for improving water quality by installing new or retrofitted stormwater treatment devices within the Miller Creek watershed. Miller Creek is on the MPCA's impaired waters list due to, among many possible factors, higher temperatures resulting from warm stormwater runoff, and sediment deposition in the stream bottom that smothers both trout eggs and the insects upon which trout feed. The enforcement action, called a "stipulation agreement," is one of the many tools the MPCA uses to achieve compliance with environmental laws. When calculating penalties and enforcement options, MPCA staff take into account how seriously each violation affected the environment, whether it is a first-time or repeat violation, and how promptly the violation was reported to appropriate authorities. It also attempts to recover the calculated economic benefit gained by failure to comply with environmental laws in a timely manner. For a comprehensive list of enforcement actions taken by the MPCA, refer to the agency's Web site at hhref="/newscenter/ enforcement.html.