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Intel has agreed to pay a $143,000 civil penalty for three air quality violations – two dating back to 2003 – at its chip manufacturing plants in Hillsboro and Aloha.

The manufacturer failed to notify Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality during a permit renewal process about fluoride emissions at its plants. The company also was cited for making fluoride emissions at the plants, said George Davis, environmental engineer for DEQ‘s Air Quality Program.

Rules requiring notification took effect in 2001.

The third violation came from state approval in 2010 for Intel’s D1X expansion. The company failed to notify DEQ that it was emitting fluoride when it got its permit, Davis said. Lack of disclosure resulted in written approval without public testimony.

“We didn’t know about the fluoride emission,” he said. “One could speculate that perhaps we should have, but we didn’t.”

In addition to paying the civil penalty, Intel must address air quality violations. The company will need to obtain a permit to emit fluoride at the two locations, and limit emissions to 3.4 tons per year, Davis said.

The permitting process will involve a public process as well as a review of the company’s emissions and controls. The agreement and the penalty do not require the company to halt construction now or in the future.

“It’s coming late, but Intel does have a high level of controls on their equipment,” Davis said. “It seems unlikely that we’re going to find that they should have installed emission controls but didn’t.”

Intel said it would do everything needed to cooperate with DEQ.

“We’ve acknowledged multiple times that we made multiple mistakes in the permitting process,” said Chelsea Hossaini, Intel’s Northwestern regional spokeswoman. “We’ve taken a number of steps to address that, and we’re cooperating fully to rectify the matter.”