(Louisiana Illuminator) - Louisiana and the federal government are pushing for more than $1 billion in fines and penalties against Smitty’s Supply Inc. for years of environmental violations and more recent damages from an explosion and petrochemical spill at its Tangipahoa Parish plant.
That dollar figure is eye-catching but also leads one to question: Why did it take an environmental disaster for officials to finally act against a business with an established track record of wiping its feet on regulations meant to curb pollution?
The answer: It’s in line with regulators’ kid-glove approach to environmental enforcement in Louisiana, where state and federal agencies go out of their way to provide a welcome mat for industry while placing the welfare of its residents on the backburner.
Examples of this practice are actually detailed in a lawsuit the state Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have filed against Smitty’s Supply. It accuses the company of violating the federal Clean Water Act, the Louisiana Water Control Law and Louisiana Water Pollution Control regulations, among other regulations.
Their complaint cites hundreds of infractions going back nearly five years, culminating with the Aug. 22 disaster at its Roseland facility. Millions of gallons of oil, lubricants and automotive fluids made their way into the nearby Tangipahoa River and flowed several miles downstream. A fire that took two weeks to fully extinguish created an oily soot that covered nearby homes, farms and businesses.
Before that, the company was cited for illegal wastewater discharges, failing to report pollution and seven separate chemical spills since 2021 that went beyond the facility’s property and contaminated public areas.
Between May 2022 and August 2025, Smitty’s Supply reported that it exceeded limits 230 times for the amount of organic material, fecal coliform, carbon and other pollutants it’s allowed to discharge in its wastewater.
These are incidents that Smitty’s Supply has reported to regulators. What’s gone unreported?
According to the lawsuit, the company failed to conduct “daily visual observations” of five outfall canals to check for possible pollutants on weekends and holidays from May 2022 through at least April 2025. A bit of quick math indicates that equals about 350 days without required surveillance. And because these inspections weren’t performed, they couldn’t be logged, which led to additional violations.
Then there are the infractions found when LDEQ inspectors made site visits. In January and February 2023, there were “hydrocarbon materials” and an orange “emulsified petroleum product” flowing from Smitty’s Supply outfall canals into a public roadside ditch.
After the August explosion, regulators determined the company failed to develop a required Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure Plan and didn’t adequately maintain a Facility Response Plan that lays out how it handles such incidents.
All this is to say there is an extensive history of the company failing to take significant steps to address its pattern of violations and minimal evidence of regulators taking meaningful enforcement action to bring about improvements.
The EPA’s website shows it has issued $161,522 in fines against Smitty’s Supply over the past five years, WVUE-TV Fox 8 reported in August. The company paid $250,000 to settle a state complaint over an oil spill in 2021, and the EPA collected $194,772 in 2019 for infractions, WWL-TV reported.
It’s hard to determine what kind of dent these penalties have made in the private company’s bottom line; it doesn’t have to make its revenue and net income public. But on its website, Smitty’s describes itself as “one of the leading manufacturers in the world of lubricants and related products.” It leads you to believe that Smitty’s Supply has had the wherewithal to prevent its many regulatory fumbles over the years, acknowledged and otherwise.
Like Charles Dickens wrote (and Elvis Costello later sang), accidents will happen. But they’re more probable — and maybe less likely to be considered accidents — in a state where officials aren’t willing to take meaningful punitive action to prevent them.
That leads to another question: It’s not if there will be another Smitty’s Supply-level disaster, but when and where.
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Greg LaRose has covered news for more than 30 years in Louisiana. Before coming to the Louisiana Illuminator, he was the chief investigative reporter for WDSU-TV in New Orleans. He previously led the government and politics team for The Times-Picayune | NOLA.com, and was editor in chief at New Orleans CityBusiness. Greg's other career stops include Tiger Rag, South Baton Rouge Journal, the Covington News Banner, Louisiana Radio Network and multiple radio stations.
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