COBURG, Ore. (AP) - The Monaco Coach Corp. asked Oregon to reduce the fine it levied against the company because of violations at its Harrisburg plant.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality imposed a $7,102 penalty May 29, saying the Coburg-based RV manufacturer violated its air quality permit.
The company used thinners in its wood furniture finishing operations that contained excessive levels of volatile hazardous air pollutants, the DEQ said.
In a June 8 letter to the agency, Kurt Anderson, Monaco's environmental health and safety director, asked that the fine be sliced to $5,300. Monaco doesn't deny the violation, but Anderson asked DEQ to consider the company's efforts to prevent such violations. He noted that the company's compliance review process did catch the problem and stopped the use of the noncompliant thinner.
''And even though we had employees and a supplier that failed us, I don't think Monaco was negligent,'' Anderson wrote.
According to the DEQ, Monaco is permitted to use thinners that contain no more than 10 percent volatile hazardous air pollutants by weight. But in a semiannual report that Monaco sent to the state last August, the company said that from Jan. 13, 2006, to March 22, 2006, it used thinners that contained 26 percent volatile hazardous air pollutants by weight.
Monaco's air quality permit requires it to report such changes within seven days, but the company waited until August to notify the state, the DEQ said.
