‘Smart Window’ maker to pay nearly $5 million fine for illegal wastewater dumping in Mississippi

By MICHAEL GOLDBERG
Associated Press/Report for America

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled California-based company will pay just under $5 million in fines for discharging wastewater into a publicly owned sewage treatment plant in Mississippi without obtaining a valid state permit. View Inc., a glass-making firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, previously pleaded guilty to negligently discharging wastewater into a city sewer system from the company’s sole manufacturing facility in Olive Branch, Mississippi. Federal prosecutors say that discharge endangered residents in the north Mississippi community and Memphis suburb of almost 40,000. The company discharges about 248,000 gallons of wastewater per day from glass-cutting, grinding, washing and polishing directly into the city’s sewer system.