Wal-Mart, the giant retailer that likes to appear environmentally green, will have to fork over some of that green for damage its stormwater runoff did to a lake in Antioch, Illinois. The Chicago Tribune reported this week that Wal-Mart has to pay $80,000 in fines to the state and Lake County, according to the agreement over construction damage caused by a Wal-Mart Supercenter at Illinois Highway 173 and Deep Lake Road in 2003. Stormwater runoff went into East Loon Lake, according to the Illinois attorney general’s office. Almost all of the money will go to the state, and only $5,000 to Lake County. In the settlement, Wal-Mart admits to no wrong doing, which suggests that polluting lakes with run off must be considered the right thing to do at Wal-Mart. Even though they admitted to doing nothing wrong, Wal-Mart will provide two training seminars to construction professionals in Illinois on how to minimize storm-water runoff. But since the EPA and officials in other states have fined them for the same stormwater problems in the past, it’s not clear how this latest settlement will change anything. Wal-Mart failed to give the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency complete runoff reports, as required under the terms of national pollution standards, said Assistant Atty. Gen. Paula Becker Wheeler.
Let’s hope Wal-Mart serves popcorn at these seminars, so these construction companies stay awake for the damage report. For earlier examples of similar Wal-Mart settlements, which always involved no wrong doing by Wal-Mart, search Newsflash by “environmental.”
