WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice today announced an innovative environmental agreement with Ohio-based Marathon Petroleum Company that already has significantly reduced air pollution from all six of the company’s petroleum refineries. Marathon has agreed to state-of-the-art controls on flares and to a cap on the volume of waste gas it will send to its flares which is expected to reduce harmful air pollution by approximately 5,400 tons per year.

As part of the effort to reach this agreement, Marathon, under the direction and oversight of EPA, spent more than $2.4 million to develop and conduct pioneering combustion efficiency testing of flares and to advance the understanding of the relationship between flare operating parameters and flare combustion efficiency.

From 2008 to the end of 2011, the controls Marathon installed, such as flow monitors and gas chromatographs, have eliminated approximately 4720 tons per year of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and 110 tons per year of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) from the air. An additional 530 tons per year of VOCs and 30 tons per year of HAPs are projected to be eliminated in the future.

Marathon, headquartered in Findlay, Ohio, will pay a civil penalty of $460,000 to the United States.

For more about the settlement visit:
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/cases/civil/caa/marathonrefining.html