A Texas district court this week issued a temporary injunction against a wind turbine recycling company that has stockpiled thousands of wind turbine blades at two facilities in Sweetwater.
The temporary injunction orders Global Fiberglass Solutions to immediately cease accepting shipments of wind turbine blades and to remove all the blades within the next two years. Within 30 days the company must deposit a bond of at least $3.5 million with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) as financial assurance.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Global in February for failing to dispose of the waste and instead creating a stockpile of some 3,000 blades. The lawsuit seeks significant civil penalties.
Related: Thousands of Dumped Wind-Turbine Blades Prompt Crackdown in Texas
Under the temporary injunction, Global must obtain permits from TCEQ to process the blades at the facilities and then process and remove the blades. Half of the blades must be removed within 365 days of the temporary injunction, and all the blades must be removed within 550 days.
“No new wind turbine blade shipments will be accepted at these illegal sites and the defendants are now legally required to begin cleaning up the thousands of discarded blades they irresponsibly abandoned in Sweetwater,” Paxton said in a statement. “We will not allow Texas land to be used as an illegal dumping ground.”
Topics Texas