JDSU to pay $92,000 fine to settle water pollution case

JDSU, one of Sonoma County’s largest high-tech employers, has agreed to pay $92,400 in penalties for disposing hazardous waste into the city’s sewer system over several years.

The Santa Rosa Fire Department announced Wednesday that the city and the Milpitas-based tech company had reached a settlement in the pollution case.

The city became aware of a problem at the company’s Northpoint Parkway facility in July 2013 when a city water inspector sampled effluent and found it had a pH level that slightly exceeded city standards.

Further investigation revealed that the local operation, which makes products that include anti-counterfeiting materials, thin-film optical products and 3-D sensing devices, was disposing a type of ammonium salt - tetramethylammonium hydroxide, or TMAH - into the sewer.

The chemical was being used in low concentrations as part of a lithography development process, the company told the city. It was being rinsed off silicon wafer material with deionized water, and the resulting effluent was disposed of in the sewer. TMAH is described by the city as an “organic, corrosive toxic waste.”

The water department referred the case to the fire department, which enforces state hazardous waste disposal laws. Fire officials concluded that TMAH disposal in the sewer was prohibited, and that the practice at JDSU had started in August 2010.

The city issued a cease and desist order against the company in March 2014, and the company immediately complied, according to Assistant Fire Marshal Paul Lowenthal.

“JDSU has been extremely cooperative throughout the process,” Lowenthal said.

JDSU officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Lowenthal said JDSU officials believed that they were disposing of the TMAH properly because it was being diluted. The company has since followed proper protocol, taking the chemical waste to an offsite disposal site, Lowenthal said.

JDSU can dispose some chemicals into the sewer system if diluted below a certain pH value, but TMAH is not one of those chemicals, Lowenthal said.

“Even though it was OK for pH purposes for industrial discharge, it wasn’t OK with us,” Lowenthal said.

The fine was calculated assuming a relatively low environmental harm and violations over 566 days.

No harm to the city’s sewer system or the Laguna Wastewater Treatment Plant has been detected from the discharges.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @srcitybeat.