NEWS RELEASE
FROM:
Jeffrey F. Rosen, District Attorney
Tina Nunes Ober, Deputy District Attorney
Environmental Protection Unit
(408) 792-2598 For release on March 3, 2011 TARGET CORPORATION TO PAY $22.5 MILLION SETTLEMENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL VIOLATIONS
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeffrey F. Rosen, together with 19 other California District Attorneys, the California Attorney General and the City Attorneys for San Diego and Los Angeles announced today that a judge in Alameda County approved a judgment that orders Minnesota-based Target Corporation to pay $22.5 million as part of a settlement of a civil environmental prosecution. Under the settlement, which includes a final judgment and permanent injunction, Target Corporation must pay $22.5 million for civil penalties, costs and supplemental environmental projects. The judgment is the culmination of a civil enforcement lawsuit filed in June 2009 claiming that more than 240 Target facilities throughout the state handled and disposed of various hazardous wastes and materials improperly over a five-year period, including pesticides, paint, aerosols, oven cleaners, pool chemicals, drain openers and other flammable, toxic and corrosive materials.
As a result of the prosecution, California Target stores have adopted new policies and procedures designed to eliminate the disposal of waste hazardous products into store trash compactors and drains. Stores are now required to retain their hazardous waste in segregated, labeled containers so as to minimize the risk of exposure to employees and customers and ensure that incompatible wastes (like ammonia and chlorine) do not combine to cause dangerous chemical reactions. Hazardous waste produced by California Target stores through damage, spills and returns is now being collected by state-registered haulers, taken to proper disposal facilities and properly documented and accounted for as required by California law. ###