$13 Million Reminder

It was not, Federal Judge Robert Merhige insisted, a penalty so much as an expensive thought provoker. "I hope that after this sentencing," he said, "every corporate officer will think, 'If I don't do anything [about pollution], I will be out of a job.' "

Merhige's reminder, delivered in his Richmond courtroom last week, was the toughest sentence ever imposed on a corporation in a pollution case: a $13.2 million fine to be paid by the Allied Chemical Corp. for discharging Kepone and other chemical wastes. Slipshod procedures in the manufacture of the deadly pesticide in Hopewell, Va., had forced the closing of the lower James River in Virginia to fishermen since December; more than 70 people, all employees of the now closed plant or members of their families, had been treated for Kepone poisoning, symptoms of which include brain and liver damage, memory failure and slurred speech (TIME, Feb. 2).

Maximum Penalty. Kepone, a lethal white powder that was widely used against ants, roaches and potato bugs, was developed by Allied in 1951; in 1974 Allied turned the manufacturing of Kepone over to a newly formed Hopewell firm called Life Science Products Co., which was owned by two former Allied staffers and got both its equipment and raw material from Allied. Judge Merhige dismissed as unproved a prosecution charge that Life Science was an Allied "captive," set up merely to spare the big chemical company the bother of complying with the pollution laws. But the judge's sentence suggested that he felt that Allied was responsible.

While Allied was given the maximum penalty allowed under the law--an 1899 federal statute governing waste disposal in rivers and 1972 amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act--the judge suspended all but $25,000 of the multimillion dollar fines he gave two owners of Life Science, and placed them on five years' probation.

The Allied fine easily surpassed the biggest court-ordered pollution penalty: a $3.5 million fine levied against Ford three years ago for tampering with their cars to make them seem less polluting than they actually were. And Allied still faces civil suits totaling $180 million from individuals claiming physical or economic injury, including scores of beached James River fishermen as well as about 80 former Life Science employees and family members. But Judge Merhige, who charged that "business necessity took the forefront" at Allied in its handling of Kepone, offered the company an incentive to reduce the fine. He suggested that Allied's big fine could be cut if the company were to make "some voluntary effort" to alleviate the harm caused by Kepone pollution.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.