Northfield's Multek Fined for Alleged Air Quality Violations

Multek Flexible Circuits has agreed to pay a $34,940 civil penalty to resolve alleged air quality violations at its manufacturing facility in Northfield, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency officials said Wednesday.

At its Northfield facility, the company manufactures flexible printed circuits for the electronics industry.

The violations, according to MPCA spokesperson Brent Rohne, stem from when the company installed new emission units starting in 2003, for which the MPCA says Multek should have applied for permit amendments prior to installing the units.

In November 2007, Multek applied for reissuance of its permit. The MPCA notified the company that its application was incomplete because of missing information.

Rohne says Multek also failed to meet requirements for its existing air quality permit relating to testing the catalyst in emission-control equipment and was late in submitting data to the MPCA. In some cases, according to MPCA records, submissions were late by more than four years.

The result was that the company violated the terms of its air-quality permit, and also did not submit the proper applications for required permit amendments for several new emission units, according to the MPCA.

A call Wednesday to Multek Flexible Circuits was deferred to a media relations official in California. A message left with that person was not immediately returned.

This is not the first time Multek’s Northfield facility has been fined by the MPCA.

In late 2009, the company was slapped with $8,600 in fines for air quality violations, according to MPCA records.

In addition to the fine for its most recent violations, the MPCA says Multek agreed to a schedule of specific corrective actions to achieve compliance, including specific plans on how it will ensure compliance with the facility’s environmental permit limits and prevent re-occurrence of the violations in the future.

Rohne says Multek has taken the necessary steps to correct the issues.

“Most of the corrective actions, if not all of them, are completed,” he said.

The $34,940 fine was negotiated between the MPCA and Multek officials, Rohne said.

According to the MPCA, when calculating penalties, the environmental agency takes into account how seriously the violations affected the environment, whether they were first-time or repeat violations, and how promptly they were reported to appropriate authorities. Penalties also attempt 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 by the MPCA, go to the agency’s website.