Carlile Transportation Fined $20,000 by EPA for Hazardous Waste Violations

A trucking company stored hazardous waste in Anchorage for 22 days straight, more than twice the legal limit, while workers in the same facility manually stabbed aerosol cans and let toxic residues drift into the shop air, and the total penalty for all of it was $20,000 ($20,000 — less than the average American spends on a used car).

A Trucking Giant. A Toxic Track Record. A Decade of Documented Violations.

Carlile Transportation Systems, LLC operates out of 1800 East 1st Avenue in Anchorage, Alaska. The company is a major freight and logistics carrier serving Alaska, one of the most environmentally fragile and infrastructure-remote states in the country. When a company in Alaska mishandles hazardous waste, the consequences do not stay inside a facility fence.

Federal inspectors from EPA Region 10 conducted an on-site inspection at Carlile’s facility in January 2022. What they found was a pattern. Hazardous waste shipments sitting for weeks beyond the legal deadline. Containers of used oil with no labels telling workers what was inside. Aerosol cans being manually punctured by hand and left to off-gas in open cardboard boxes.

The EPA’s enforcement action covers violations stretching from September 2020 through October 2021. This was not a one-time mistake. This was a system.

14 Shipments. Every One Over the Line.

Federal law under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) sets a strict 10-day maximum for how long a transfer facility can hold hazardous waste shipments before they must move on. The rule exists for a reason: the longer hazardous materials sit in a commercial facility not designed for long-term storage, the higher the risk of leaks, spills, and contamination.

Inspectors reviewed Carlile’s own shipping manifests and found 14 separate hazardous waste shipments that exceeded the 10-day limit. The exceedances ranged from 13 days to 22 days. At the extreme end, two shipments accepted on September 3, 2020 and November 12, 2020 sat for 22 days each.

Every single bar clears the green legal-limit line. Some by a few days, two by a factor of more than double. The chart above represents Carlile’s own shipping records, which the EPA obtained during inspection. The company signed a settlement that acknowledged EPA jurisdiction and consented to the penalty.

The Price Tag They Don’t Put on the Press Release

Workers Were the First to Breathe It

When Carlile employees in the Trailer Shop and Bay 3 areas were told to deal with used aerosol cans, they did it with their bare hands and a puncturing device. Not a device designed to safely capture residues and seal off vapors. Their hands, and a tool. Then they dropped the punctured cans into a cardboard box and let whatever was left inside evaporate into the air they were breathing.

Federal inspectors found a fiberboard container holding punctured cans with spent residue visibly coating the inside of the box. That means the aerosol contents, which can include propellants, solvents, lubricants, or chemical compounds depending on the product, were off-gassing into an enclosed shop environment. Workers had no warning labels on nearby oil containers either, meaning they were navigating a shop floor where the identity and hazard level of multiple substances was simply not marked.

RCRA regulations exist precisely because aerosol cans classified as universal waste contain hazardous residues that require engineered containment during puncturing. The law requires a device specifically designed to safely puncture aerosol cans and capture what comes out. Carlile skipped that. The workers in that shop absorbed the risk that the law was designed to remove.

Alaska Has No Safety Net. Carlile Knew That.

The EPA’s settlement document contains a fact that deserves to be read twice: “The State of Alaska has not been authorized pursuant to Section 3006 of RCRA to carry out a hazardous waste program in lieu of the Federal program.” Alaska is one of a small number of states that runs no independent hazardous waste enforcement. The federal EPA is the only entity watching. And the federal EPA showed up years after the violations started, during a single inspection in January 2022, covering conduct that began in September 2020.

That gap, over a year of documented storage violations before anyone from the government walked through the door, represents the space in which companies like Carlile operate freely. The 10-day storage rule protects communities near transfer facilities from the slow accumulation of hazardous material in buildings not designed to hold it. In Anchorage, in an already logistically stressed state that depends on freight corridors, that protection rested entirely on a federal agency that was not monitoring the facility in real time.

The Insult in the Settlement Language

The agreement states that Carlile “neither admits nor denies the factual allegations contained herein.” This is standard legal language, but it carries real weight for anyone who reads the document. The same company that signed the agreement confirming the EPA’s jurisdiction, consented to the penalty, and waived its right to any appeal or hearing, still gets to officially say it does not admit what happened. The 14 manifest records with dates and day counts are attached. The inspector’s observations of the aerosol cans and unlabeled oil containers are in the document. The acknowledgment is written everywhere except in the one line that would cost the company its public image.

The Director of Safety and Compliance at Carlile, Leon Dwiggins, signed the settlement on July 23, 2025. His signature binds the company. His title is “Safety and Compliance.” The violations documented in this settlement occurred on his professional watch, in the area of the company he is specifically tasked to govern. The settlement does not indicate any internal accountability measures, disciplinary action, or remediation plan beyond payment of the fine.

Straight From the Document. Word for Word.

Who Actually Pays for Corporate Shortcuts

Environmental Degradation

Hazardous waste stored beyond its legal window in a transfer facility creates compounding risk. Transfer facilities are not licensed storage sites. They are not built with the containment infrastructure, secondary barriers, or monitoring systems that permitted storage facilities must have. When Carlile held hazardous waste for 22 days in a facility designed for 10-day transit, every additional day was a day that waste sat in a structure without the environmental protections the law requires for long-term holding.

Alaska’s ecosystem is not forgiving of contamination. Its watersheds, permafrost, and coastal environments are among the most sensitive in North America. Anchorage sits in the Cook Inlet watershed, a critical habitat for multiple salmon species and the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale. A spill or leak from improperly stored hazardous materials at a commercial freight facility does not stay in the parking lot. The settlement document does not detail what types of hazardous waste were stored, but federal RCRA oversight applies to materials that include corrosives, flammables, solvents, and reactive chemicals.

The aerosol can violations add a direct atmospheric dimension. When Carlile workers manually punctured cans and let residues evaporate openly, those vapors went somewhere. In an enclosed shop, they went into the air workers breathed. But aerosol propellants and solvent residues in a commercial facility also raise questions about air quality compliance that this settlement does not address, because the EPA action covered RCRA violations only.

Public Health

The workers in Carlile’s Trailer Shop and Bay 3 are the clearest identified group harmed by these practices. Federal regulations require engineered puncturing devices for aerosol cans precisely because the residual contents, including solvents, propellants like hydrocarbons or compressed gases, and chemical lubricants, pose inhalation and skin exposure risks. Carlile’s workers used manual puncturing and open evaporation. That means they breathed the off-gassing of whatever was in those cans, without any documented engineering controls to prevent exposure.

The unlabeled used oil containers compound the occupational health picture. RCRA’s labeling requirement exists so workers know what they are handling. Used oil from vehicle engines contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heavy metals, and other combustion byproducts that are toxic with repeated skin or inhalation exposure. When containers are unlabeled, workers cannot assess hazard levels, cannot follow proper handling protocols, and cannot document exposure for future medical reference. That is not a paperwork problem; it is a health protection failure.

The settlement document does not reference any worker health monitoring, OSHA referral, or health outcome data. The fine covers the regulatory violation. It does not cover any medical surveillance, air quality testing, or remediation of the work environment. The workers involved have no documented acknowledgment in this agreement that their health was put at risk.

Economic Inequality

The $20,000 fine ($20,000, roughly four months of rent for a single-bedroom apartment in Anchorage) functions as the total cost of doing business the wrong way for over a year. Carlile is a commercial freight carrier operating across Alaska, a major logistics corridor. The fine is structured as a settled civil penalty with no admission of wrongdoing, no public disclosure requirement beyond this document, and no mandated corrective action detailed in the order. The EPA retains enforcement rights for future violations but the settlement itself closes this chapter.

The workers who operated in this environment, the truck shop employees and trailer bay staff who punctured cans by hand and stored oil in unmarked containers, absorb the health consequences. The company absorbs a $20,000 fine ($20,000, which amounts to about 0.001% of a mid-sized regional freight company’s annual revenue). The math on who carries the risk and who pays the price in this system is straightforward. The workers carry the risk. The company pays a fine so small it functions as a rounding error.

What $20,000 Actually Buys

This Is Not Over. Here Is What You Can Do.

Who Signed This Document

Leon Dwiggins, Director of Safety and Compliance, Carlile Transportation Systems, LLC signed this settlement on July 23, 2025. He can be reached at the address on file: ldwiggins@carlile.biz. His professional role is to prevent exactly what this settlement documents.

Edward J. Kowalski, Director, Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, EPA Region 10 signed for the EPA on July 24, 2025. His division covers Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

Watchlist: Who Has Authority Here

• EPA Region 10: The only federal body with RCRA enforcement authority in Alaska. Contact them to report ongoing violations or request inspection records. R10_RHC@epa.gov
• EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG): If you believe enforcement action was inadequate or improperly handled, the OIG investigates EPA enforcement decisions.
• OSHA: The aerosol puncturing and unlabeled chemical containers described in this case are also occupational safety issues. OSHA Region 10 covers Alaska and can investigate worker exposure complaints independently of EPA.
• Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC): While Alaska lacks RCRA authorization, ADEC has authority over some state environmental matters and can receive public complaints.
• EPA Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO): Search Carlile Transportation Systems at echo.epa.gov to track any future violations. EPA retained enforcement rights for future conduct explicitly in this settlement.

The Bigger Picture

A $20,000 fine ($20,000, the cost of roughly 200 tanks of diesel fuel for the trucks Carlile runs) does not deter a freight company from cutting corners. It prices it. If you work in logistics, transportation, or a facility where you handle chemicals, hazardous materials, or waste, you have the right to know what you are being exposed to, and you have the right to report violations without retaliation. Document what you see. Know your OSHA whistleblower rights. Connect with local labor unions in your sector. Organize with your coworkers. The EPA visited Carlile once. Your coworkers are there every day.