Sept. 5 — A Windham car wash owned by a former Westbrook police detective was fined $239,000 for illegally dumping about 2 million gallons of wastewater containing hazardous chemicals such as lead, thallium and chromium down the drain and attempting to conceal it.

It is one of several proposed consent agreements with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection that would resolve environmental violations — some dating back as far as five years — being reviewed by the state Environmental Protection Board, the agency’s enforcement arm.

In 2023, the board approved six settlements providing for monetary penalties or damages totaling approximately $121,000.

Other pending violations include a tanning salon chain that dumped used or broken lamps containing mercury in a basement in Augusta, an oil spill that closed South Portland’s Willard Beach for four days in August 2021, and improper storage of hazardous waste at Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington.

Auto Shine Car Wash was supposed to take wastewater off-site for disposal, but a state inspector suspected that wouldn’t happen after he noticed foam in a storm drain during a 2019 inspection of the location, which was then operating two years ago on Roosevelt Trail, state documents show.

Upon investigation, the inspector discovered an unapproved underground pipe connecting the company’s wastewater tanks to a storm drain. The ground on which the pipe was located had been paved over. When the inspector returned, the pipe had been removed.

Based on documented water deliveries and daily traffic, DEP estimates that Auto Shine has illegally discharged about 2 million gallons of contaminated wastewater since it opened in 2017, according to the proposed agreement.

According to laboratory test results, Auto Shine’s wastewater — which could seep into groundwater if poured into a sewer system — exceeded the maximum allowable contaminant levels set by the state or federal government for chromium, lead, sodium, thallium, chemicals and three cancer-causing hydrocarbons.

At the time of the breach, the Windham car wash and another Auto Shine in Topsham were owned by John Chase, a prominent real estate developer who was a retired Westbrook Police Department detective. Chase died in 2022.

Under the proposed consent agreement — which is still subject to a public hearing before going to the Environmental Protection Board for consideration — the DEP is willing to suspend all but $56,000 of the penalty if Auto Shine complies with the state’s corrective action plan.

“The facility is operated and maintained in accordance with permits and applicable storm and wastewater requirements,” according to an emailed response from attorney David Van Slyke, who works for the Portland law firm Preti Flaherty and represents Auto Shine.

No one at Sun Tan City, which operates 11 salons in Maine and 250 nationwide, or Glow Brands, the company’s parent company, returned calls or emails about cleanup costs and fines totaling more than $100,000 related to the illegal disposal of used and broken tanning lamps.

Under the proposed settlement agreement, Maine salons were to ship their broken or used tanning lamps to be illegally stored in the basement of an Augusta apartment building, the same connected building complex that houses the office of chain co-owner Dennis Guerrette.

In July 2019, the state received a tip from a city code enforcement officer who was responding to a complaint about a large quantity of broken and used light bulbs — considered hazardous waste because they contain mercury — accumulating in the basement of the building the Guerrette family had remodeled in 2014.

State documents show that a local chain of Sun Tan City franchise salons, operating under the name STC New England LLC, allegedly stored used lamps at a Capital Area Self Storage facility in Chelsea owned by co-owners Glenn and William Guerrette.

During the investigation, DEP inspectors found broken lamps in a dumpster near the Augusta apartment building that was not owned by Sun Tan City, indicating that the owners had been throwing at least some of the lamps away in the trash. By law, they should have been sent to a hazardous waste landfill.

Cory Sterling, owner of Vehicle Werks Garage in South Portland, could be ordered to pay more than $50,000 to cover state costs related to cleaning up a spill of about 7,500 gallons of oily water and contaminants that closed Willard Beach for four days in August 2021.

According to the proposed consent order, Sterling was pressure washing the interior of a garage on Cottage Road where he planned to open an auto repair shop when oily fluids suddenly began to collect and overflow from a tank on the garage floor.

Sterling was using detergent and absorbent materials to soak up oily liquid leaking from the garage into the parking lot and storm drain when the South Portland Fire Department arrived on the scene after receiving complaints from beachgoers and residents.

Beachgoers complained of a burning sensation while swimming, and residents reported a strong oily odor. The storm drain at Sterling’s garage—which for years operated as Hill’s service station—ultimately discharges through an outlet pipe at Willard Beach, about a half-mile away.

The 4-acre, crescent-shaped beach stretches from Southern Maine Community College to Fisherman’s Point. A stormwater drainage pipe protrudes from the sand in the center of the beach, near the main entrance, bathhouse, snack bar and playground.

On Wednesday we received no response to emails and phone calls to the workshop.

Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington agreed to pay a $20,000 fine for improperly storing hazardous waste, including overflowing storage areas and improperly labeled containers, as well as failing to conduct weekly inspections, train employees and keep waste records, state records show.

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