UWC Reaches Settlement with EPA

Doctorgori · Sep 30, 2024

polyppal said:
Crazy to me how a company:

Does a bunch of illegal/unethical things

Causes real monetary damage to peoples systems

Digs in and takes no accountability for years

Oh the hidden cost of unabated “deregulation”

jda · Sep 30, 2024

Some don't seem to be understanding, so I will try to break this down...

There are civil and criminal parts to this. Multiple agencies and entities can bring either, or both. This settlement was civil from the EPA - there could be more civil penalties from different places/orgs/etc. including even class action and/or lawsuits should somebody like API or Fritz (whose product they copied) want to file them. The criminal part needs to be handled by a DA - there are state and federal at play here.

EPA settled their labeling part of this - that is all. Consumer fraud, mail fraud are still at play here. DO NOT think that anybody looked past labeling a EPA Pesticide as a bacteria - since this is not in the EPA civil settlement, you can bet that a criminal case is ongoing.

If anybody is so inclined, you can see if there are cases filed in Minnesota State Court or the Feds for the District of MN. The criminal parts always take longer since judges are involved, even if there is a settlement.

If you are interested, then please fully read this, do not skim it. The parallels are staggering...

Summary of Criminal Prosecutions | Enforcement | US EPA

cfpub.epa.gov

Here is a quick quote:

]Kieser’s advertisements for Pond Clear Plus in newspapers and magazines falsely and fraudulently represented that Pond Clear Plus could control lake weeds and algae “Mother Nature’s Way,” with “No Chemicals,” using a “biological method with live bacteria that dissolves plant nutrients, black muck, and rotten egg odor.” Kieser also falsely and fraudulently represented to customers that Pond Clear Plus contained no chemicals. In fact, as Kieser knew full well, Pond Clear Plus contained the chemical pesticide Diuron 80DF, which was prohibited by its EPA-approved labeling from being applied directly to water.

jda · Sep 30, 2024

Also, the settlement said that they had to stop making five products all with different names than what is currently being sold at amazon, and elsewhere.

Rollnwthdatide · Sep 30, 2024

Bout to see Polyp Labs remove some products or do some clever renaming or adjusting the wordage to skirt by this regulation. This should have been the norm since the beginning

rtparty · Sep 30, 2024

@jda

Even if other products relabel or register, wouldn’t they still be accountable for mislabeling and/or not registering beforehand?

BeanAnimal · Sep 30, 2024

Doctorgori said:
Oh the hidden cost of unabated “deregulation”

Never mind the cost of unabated regulation

Maybe common sense in the whole process is what is needed, but alas gubment.

BeanAnimal · Sep 30, 2024

jda said:
If you are interested, then please fully read this, do not skim it. The parallels are staggering...

Summary of Criminal Prosecutions | Enforcement | US EPA

cfpub.epa.gov

Here is a quick quote:

So, Soylent Green?

jda · Sep 30, 2024

Again, plenty of examples on the internet of honest companies wanting to do the right thing that do not face any penalties or have very small fines. The ones trying to manipulate or otherwise be dishonest are the ones that get hammered. I would not want to be anybody who tries and manipulates this system - the people investigating this are not like the normal simple thinkers on the internet. Consulting a specialist is probably a good idea, but I also would rather be submitting my own paperwork rather than have somebody turn me in.

spsick · Sep 30, 2024

jda said:
Some don't seem to be understanding, so I will try to break this down...

There are civil and criminal parts to this. Multiple agencies and entities can bring either, or both. This settlement was civil from the EPA - there could be more civil penalties from different places/orgs/etc. including even class action and/or lawsuits should somebody like API or Fritz (whose product they copied) want to file them. The criminal part needs to be handled by a DA - there are state and federal at play here.

EPA settled their labeling part of this - that is all. Consumer fraud, mail fraud are still at play here. DO NOT think that anybody looked past labeling a EPA Pesticide as a bacteria - since this is not in the EPA civil settlement, you can bet that a criminal case is ongoing.

If anybody is so inclined, you can see if there are cases filed in Minnesota State Court or the Feds for the District of MN. The criminal parts always take longer since judges are involved, even if there is a settlement.

If you are interested, then please fully read this, do not skim it. The parallels are staggering...

Summary of Criminal Prosecutions | Enforcement | US EPA

cfpub.epa.gov

Here is a quick quote:

Yikes. That is maybe a more extreme case given the volume of product, it being poured directly into waterways, and especially the tax evasion that likely brought attention to his operation but daaaaang. Not a warm and fuzzy feeling if that is a reference case to what UWC has to look forward to.

brandon429 · Oct 6, 2024

Which has done more harm to the hobby, caused more loss and harm to reefers:

Vibrant, and it's label so vile

Or red sea brand reef tanks

Red Sea Reefer 350 G2 catastrophic failure

This should come as a surprise to no one here, but the front seal on our Red Sea Reefer 350 G2 failed catastrophically last night and the whole tank emptied onto our floor in just a few minutes. We reached out to their support team to seek remedy for the impact to us and premature loss on this...

www.reef2reef.com

I think red sea is far more impactful because they're still amassing sales due to supporting entities for them that won't inform readers of these terrible breaks, across each production line from the recent past.

All the blogs sell for them daily via clicks and ads

But no blogs will report the breaks, so the info withholding cycle continues

But UWC is the bad guy.

Of course his labeling is epa illegal, that doesn't make my whataboutism less valid. We are all complacent in producing those seam break losses, because we'd rather rise up against other non damaging forces.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 6, 2024

brandon429 said:
Which has done more harm to the hobby, caused more loss and harm to reefers:

Vibrant, and it's label so vile

Or red sea brand reef tanks

Red Sea Reefer 350 G2 catastrophic failure

This should come as a surprise to no one here, but the front seal on our Red Sea Reefer 350 G2 failed catastrophically last night and the whole tank emptied onto our floor in just a few minutes. We reached out to their support team to seek remedy for the impact to us and premature loss on this...

www.reef2reef.com

I think red sea is far more impactful because they're still amassing sales due to supporting entities for them that won't inform readers of these terrible breaks, across each production line from the recent past.

All the blogs sell for them daily via clicks and ads

But no blogs will report the breaks, so the info withholding cycle continues

But UWC is the bad guy.

Of course his labeling is epa illegal, that doesn't make my whataboutism less valid. We are all complacent in producing those seam break losses, because we'd rather rise up against other non damaging forces.

Pointing out a different bad situation does not make another bad situation any better.

BeanAnimal · Oct 6, 2024

I think Brandon’s (rather ridiculous) point is that RedSea is the devil incarnate and UWC, doing God’s work, is getting a bad wrap because of a silly label discrepancy. His satire just didn’t translate well.

polyppal · Oct 6, 2024

Sure UWC committed might've committed a few 'federal crimes'.

ingchr1 · Oct 7, 2024

We hired scientists...

UWC said:
...It’s amazing how things have changed. If people read our original post on Vibrant, we didn’t just come up with some wishy washy thing. This was created in conjunction with a science firm to solve a issue that we had as a custom aquarium company, years ago...

EPA not interested... What did happen? Fraud...

UWC said:
...When we spoke with the EPA about registration and also third party registration companies, they seemed very uninterested in wanting to do anything with Vibrant. This market is too small and it seems like a sector they are not interested in getting involved in at this point...

...The EPA at this point is simply not interested in our market as it is such small fish, so to speak. They are after the broad market application products . Is the EPA being out of our hobby good or bad? I guess that's up to how you interpret what would happen if they were involved.

As for the fraud claims, yeah right...

None of you have been in my garage...we have an abstract and hope to win a major award...

UWC said:
You know what's odd. I've never seen any of you at the facility where Vibrant is made. I really don't need to spell anything out on a open forum. Maybe you all should research Algecide bacteria abstract. Where the bacteria are filtered out and discarded and the (edit) extract is used. All created by BACTERIA.

The group we work with has submitted into the ASM Microbe abstract and awards for early 2022. Once things have been presented. I will gladly post up a bunch of info on our site.

Get back to us in the form of an EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order?

UWC said:
We're still here. It's actually been kind of fun to watch them try and figure out what they think is in Vibrant. Just been sitting back and observing without interjecting. Eventually I'll tell you all exactly why you are getting the quat response on these tests, including how Vibrant is actually mixed up and bottled

UWC said:
Hello Everyone,

As everyone knows Vibrant has been wildly popular. We stand by Vibrant 100% and we are not taking these accusations lightly.

At this time, we have samples of Vibrant out to Labs for independent certified testing dating back to batches from 2016 to current to compare them to see if there have been any changes in the production of Vibrant.

We are hoping to have these results back by the end of this week and we will post everything that we have.

I know this post will not please everyone, but we want to have as much information as possible for the community before we make any official statements.

Thank you,
Jeff
UWC

rtparty · Oct 7, 2024

brandon429 said:
Which has done more harm to the hobby, caused more loss and harm to reefers:

Vibrant, and it's label so vile

Or red sea brand reef tanks

Red Sea Reefer 350 G2 catastrophic failure

This should come as a surprise to no one here, but the front seal on our Red Sea Reefer 350 G2 failed catastrophically last night and the whole tank emptied onto our floor in just a few minutes. We reached out to their support team to seek remedy for the impact to us and premature loss on this...

www.reef2reef.com

I think red sea is far more impactful because they're still amassing sales due to supporting entities for them that won't inform readers of these terrible breaks, across each production line from the recent past.

All the blogs sell for them daily via clicks and ads

But no blogs will report the breaks, so the info withholding cycle continues

But UWC is the bad guy.

Of course his labeling is epa illegal, that doesn't make my whataboutism less valid. We are all complacent in producing those seam break losses, because we'd rather rise up against other non damaging forces.

This is a real post?

GARRIGA · Oct 7, 2024

As to truth in advertising. Who ever decided to advertise snails as turbo must have been sniffing some kind of hydroxide cause those things anything but fast

Joke

Never know who might think I was being serious

A_Blind_Reefer · Oct 7, 2024

rtparty said:
This is a real post?

Hmmm…I wonder how many people with these seam issues used vibrant? Maybe vibrant weakens the sealant. I mean there have been fewer failure posts since this whole thing came about. I would never have put the two together…..until now! Hahaha

Disclaimer. This may be sarcasm