Four Affiliated Missouri Pesticide Companies Agree to Penalties for Selling Unregistered or Sales-Restricted Pesticide Products

EPA Region 7 has reached a civil settlement with four affiliated Missouri pesticide companies and two of their owner-managers in which the businesses will pay a consolidated $51,850 penalty for allegedly violating federal pesticide regulations in 2005 and 2008.

By the agreement, the respondents will also pay a separate $22,712 civil penalty that had gone unpaid by one of the firms since a previous EPA enforcement action in 2005. FRM Chem, Inc.; Advanced Products Technology, Inc.; Synisys, Inc.; and Custom Compounders, Inc.; all of Union, Mo., and owner-managers Keith G. Kastendieck and Karlan C. Kastendieck, are the respondents in a consolidated consent agreement and final order filed in Kansas City, Kan.

Separate amended complaints against the respondents were filed by EPA in June 2009, alleging that the four companies held for sale or distribution, or distributed or sold one or more unregistered pesticides, all in violation of the Federal insecticide, fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). The separate complaint against FRM Chem, Inc., alleged that FRM also sold or distributed pesticides in violation of a Stop Sale, Use, or Removal Order (SSURO). The settlement announced today resolves the allegations from those complaints, which were based in part on inspections conducted by the Missouri Department of Agriculture in December 2005 and October 2008.

EPA’s subsequent review of records from the companies and some of their customers showed that between December 2005 and November 2008, on at least 77 occasions, the respondents sold quantities of the unregistered pesticide products FRM Chlor 1250, Steri-Dine Disinfectant, and Sodium Hypochlorite SolutionSolution. The review also showed that on at least two occasions, in October and November 2008, FRM Chem, Inc., sold quantities of FRM Chlor 1250 after a Stop Sale, Use, or Removal Order had been issued against the product. Besides agreeing to pay a $51,850 civil penalty for those violations, the respondents also agreed to pay a previously unpaid $22,712 civil penalty that was brought against FRM Chem, Inc., in 2005 for selling an unregistered and misbranded pesticide product known as Root Eater in 2002.