06/22/2010 // West Palm Beach, FL, USA // Tara Monks // Tara Monks
Brooklyn Park, MD – A pharmaceutical plant that has been dormant since 1999 agreed to a series of penalties and fines for abandoning a facility and leaving toxic chemicals out and leaking on Monday June 21, 2010, as reported by The Baltimore Sun. Consolidated Pharmaceutical Group pleaded guilty to 50 charges with regards to abandoning the plant.
Consolidated Pharmaceutical Group and its owner agreed to pay $250,000 in fines, sell the site where the facility once ran and never again own a business in Maryland.
According to an assistant attorney general, when the company ended production in 1999, it “shut the door and just left,” leaving behind over 50,000 gallons of hazardous chemicals. Some of those chemicals posed the possibility of combining to form cyanide gas.
An investigation by federal, state and local officials in 2007 found chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, acetone, liquid nitrogen and solvents that were left behind in drums and other containers. Fire officials reported the fire alarm did not work and the sprinkler system was questionable.
Authorities demanded a cleanup. An attorney for Consolidated Pharmaceutical Group said all areas of the facility were cleaned.
The owner of the company, Mehmet Tunc Turgut of Lutherville, agreed to three years’ probation, during which the company must try to sell the site. If probationary terms are not met, the company faces a second $250,000 fine.
While the company is not operating, it still exists on paper. The site has prior history of hazardous material issues as well. Before Consolidated Pharmaceutical took over the facility from Kanasco Ltd. in 1994, Kanasco Ltd. faced indictments for illegal storage of hazardous materials and a spill. The indictment was dropped when Consolidated took over.
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