A Massachusetts company will pay fines and underwrite environmental projects as a settlement for numerous violations at its Tooele County hazardous waste incinerator.

The Utah Solid and Hazardous Waste Board voted 6-2 on Thursday to accept a settlement agreement totaling $519,697 with Clean Harbors Aragonite LLC for problems inspectors found from October 2006 through September 2008.

"These violations did not result in damage," said Dennis Downs, director of the Utah Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste. "They did not present a hazard to the public or the environment."

The company racked up 84 violations -- all of which have been corrected, regulators said. Downs said many could be traced to a time when Clean Harbors had lost experienced workers to other local employers, and the new staff grappled with managing operations of a complex facility, including tracking containers.

Clean Harbors, based in Norwell, Mass., will pay a $153,000 penalty. It also will spend $366,000 beefing up its tracking system, installing storage facilities, hosting two household hazardous waste collection events in Tooele County and helping with a cleanup at Wendover Air Force Base, among other environmental projects.

In a public comment period, the Environmental Protection Agency weighed in, as did the Wasatch Clean Air Coalition. Several board members objected to the settlement, wondering if it was tough enough to be a deterrent to future violations.

R. Ryan Dupont said the company had spent considerable money to fly officers to the state to discuss the settlement. He wondered aloud if those sums might have been better spent on improving the facilities.

"I'm not going to be able to vote for this," he said.

Michael D. Brehm, the board's co-chairman, also expressed some frustration with the incinerator's repeated violations. "I don't want to see them back here next year," he said.

The Associated Press reported the company violations had added up to $644,000 since 1991, not including the latest round. Nearly half of the fines had been racked up since 2002, when Clean Harbors took over the site, AP noted.

We believe we have done a significant amount of improvements to prevent that from happening again," said Phillip G. Retallick, senior vice president of health, safety and regulatory affairs for Clean Harbors.

He acknowledged the past problems, noted a new monitoring system designed to address them and described a "fair and constructive process" with state regulators. "We are looking forward to putting this behind us."