Two air pollution inspectors were standing next to a piece of equipment at Domtar’s Ashdown paper mill in the spring of 2019 when the hydrogen sulfide monitors clipped to their clothing began to alarm.
That moment, described in a civil complaint filed Friday in federal court, sits at the center of a case that would have Domtar pay a $1.5 million penalty and spend at least $2.6 million fixing its operations.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed the complaint and a proposed consent decree in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment, Division of Environmental Quality. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge John T. Shepherd in the court’s Texarkana division…