Crane manufacturer must pay $42.6M for Clean Air Act violations

A Milwaukee-based mobile crane manufacturer has reached a $42.6  million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency over Clean Air Act violations.

Between 2014 and 2018, Manitowoc Company, Inc. and two of its subsidiaries allegedly sold and imported more than 1,000 heavy cranes with diesel engines that failed to meet federal air quality standards to reduce pollution from mobile sources.

“Manitowoc’s sale and importation of cranes with uncertified engines violated Clean Air Act requirements designed to protect public health from harmful diesel emissions,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim said in a news release.

Cranes with the illegal engines gave off excess diesel exhaust that contained fine particle pollution and nitrogen oxides that can form ground-level ozone or smog.

“For years, Manitowoc imported and sold diesel engines that do not meet Clean Air Act emission standards, even after EPA made clear that such brazen conduct would not be tolerated,”  Assistant Administrator David M. Uhlmann of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance said in the release.

“Diesel exhaust is one of the dirtiest forms of air pollution and is linked to serious health conditions, including asthma and respiratory illness,” Uhlmann continued.

As part of the deal, the company and its subsidiaries did not admit any liability tied to the allegations.

The company imported the mobile cranes with diesel engines to the Port of Baltimore in Maryland. Under the deal, Manitowoc must retrofit a short-line railroad near the port in the Sparrows Point area to improve air quality for communities along the track. The project will include removing and replacing the locomotive’s old engine with a new one that has pollution controls.

The settlement is still subject to final approval by a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.