Two Las Vegas area paving companies, Southern Nevada Paving Inc., and Las Vegas Paving Corp., will pay $185,500 in penalties and reduce pollution from their operations, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The fine stems from two air pollution cases involving emissions of dust and diesel engine exhaust from the two companies' operations in Clark County.
Southern Nevada Paving Inc., paid $103,000 of the fines in civil penalties.
Specifically, the company exceeded Clark County's limits on the opacity of particulate matter emissions at one rock crushing plant and violated the federal law's New Source Performance Standards for testing of new equipment at four other plants.
In addition to paying the penalty, the settlement requires the company, at an estimated cost of $650,000, to replace an older drum mixer type asphalt plant with a far cleaner, state-of-the-art double barrel mixer.
The new mixer will minimize generation of particulate matter and smog-forming volatile organic compounds.
Las Vegas Paving Corp., agreed to pay an $82,500 penalty and reduce its air emissions to settle alleged Clean Air Act Violations at its Lone Mountain and Apex rock crushing and asphalt batch processing plants.
The settlement requires Las Vegas Paving to retrofit one diesel engine with timing retardation that reduces air pollution, and to obtain proper permits from the Clark County Health District for all other engines.