In the months following the closing of its Tucson manufacturing plant, Imation Corp. told county regulators it had cleaned its equipment and would transport volatile chemicals off-site, according to documents filed with the state.
Imation, a spinoff of 3M that made magnetic data tapes at 8500 S. Rita Road, is being sued by California-based Glass Inc., whose subsidiary moved into the warehouse after Imation ceased operations in September 2005.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Tucson July 19, stated that hexavalent chromium was present on the property at the time Glass bought it in 2006. The solar-panel maker purchased the 100,000-square-foot building and the surrounding 22 acres for $6.4 million.
Imation's Nov. 30, 2005, letter to the Pima County Department of Environmental Quality was part of a larger pollution-prevention file kept at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality in Phoenix and reviewed by the Star under a public-records request.
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"All coater, mixroom and solvent recovery process tanks, pumps, and piping were drained of solvents and solvent-water mixtures by Nov. 18, 2005," the letter stated.
In addition, the letter stated that volatile organic chemicals "generated from decommissioning were drummed and will be shipped offsite for disposal or fuel blending" by Dec. 8, 2005.
"There will be no further industrial activity as long as Imation owns the Tucson facility," it read.
The plant manager who drafted the letter could not be reached for comment. Representatives for Oakdale, Minn.-based Imation did not return phone messages Tuesday.
While Imation's 2005 letter does not specifically mention hexavalent chromium or cleanup of any trace elements, records from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from at least 2001 reveal that chromium compounds were transferred off site for disposal and treatment. It was unclear what types of compounds were removed.
The now-outdated process for making data tapes involved chromium dioxide, a pigment that contains the hexavalent chromium, which is known to cause lung cancer.
Chromium powder settled inside the building over time, Glass' lawsuit alleges.
Environmental quality documents from 2000 show that one of Imation's pollution-prevention objectives then was to "minimize use of toxic substances and/or generation of hazardous waste."
Shipping manifests during the last few years show tens of thousands of pounds of waste materials being shipped off-site, a common practice for industries that produce hazardous wastes.
Still, there were some materials left behind, Glass alleges. In fact, in a form sent to the EPA last year, Arizona Glass Properties LLC, the Glass subsidiary, stated that hazardous waste "generated by Imation" and its predecessors was "in the process of being cleaned up" in late 2006 or early 2007.
Glass, which sold the building earlier this year, wants Imation to pay the cleanup bill, which ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Glass also accuses Imation of fraud, negligence and breaching its real estate contract and is seeking unspecified direct and punitive damages.