Tennessee Eastman Plant Keeps on Winning
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For the fourth year in a row, the Eastman Chemical Company's Tennessee Eastman Division has won an award for operating its industrial wastewater treatment facility plant efficiently. The special Operational Excellence Award was presented by the Kentucky-Tennessee Water Environment Association recently to the Eastman facility.
To be eligible for the award, publicly owned and industrial wastewater treatment facilities in Tennessee and Kentucky must have no more than one discharge incident which results in plants exceeding their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. In the last four years, Eastman's wastewater facility has had but one. This wastewater treatment plant is said to be the fourth largest in the U.S. chemical industry. It was built in 1988 at a cost of $80 million, covers 8 acres and has a capacity of 30 mgd. To ensure compliance with the NPDES permit, the staff there collects and analyzes annually more than 6,000 pieces of process stream and discharged effluent data. The company's John Barber said: "Maintaining this level of compliance over the last four years is a tremendous accomplishment, but operating the facility safely is just as important." Fifty employees have worked eight years without a lost-time injury, and five years with only one OSHA-recordable accident. " Eastman Chemical Company manufactures and markets chemicals, fibers and plastics. The company employs 17,500 people in more than 30 countries and had 1996 sales of $4.8 billion. Corporate headquarters is in Kingsport, Tennessee. For more information on the topic contact Lou Moore at 423-229-3369. Edited by Ian Lisk |