Helena’s facility in Mesquite.
The New Mexico Environment Department has paid Helena Chemical Co. $23,500 to settle violations of the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act, Helena announced today.
Helena and the department have been at odds for years. The state has fined the company nearly half a million dollars for environmental violations, most relating to air quality at its Mesquite facility. And the state recently began pursuing new action against Helena to push it to comply with groundwater regulations and to force it to maintain an air-quality permit Helena says it doesn’t need.
With that as the backdrop, in September 2008 Helena made four public records requests to the environment department for records related to its air quality permit. A news release from Helena states that the department denied Helena access to hundreds of pages of documents.
Helena sued in December 2008 in the First Judicial District Court in Santa Fe, and on Nov. 30 of last year the court found that the department had improperly denied Helena access to the records. The court ordered the department to provide access.
In addition, the public records act allows for recovery of attorney’s fees and other costs, and for the awarding of damages. The environment department agreed in February to pay Helena $23,500 for attorney’s fees and costs. Helena received the money last week.
“We wanted the opportunity to closely review these documents because we believe they contain useful information that can demonstrate to NMED that our warehouse emissions are too low to require an air quality permit,” said Louis Rodrigue, vice president of Helena’s southern business unit, in the news release.
“NMED’s own air-monitoring data demonstrates that the air quality around Helena’s warehouse is good, according to federal Environmental Protection Agency standards, yet NMED did not publicize that information,” Rodrigue said.
Helena’s release states that the company will donate the funds to Mayfield High School Future Farmers of America and Las Cruces High School Future Farmers of America. Each will receive $11,750.