RI smelter fined for furnaces

Font Size:

By Tom Saul | Thursday, January 11, 2007 12:57 AM CST | () comments

A Rock Island metals company has agreed to pay a $40,000 penalty for failure to test for potential pollutants from smelting furnaces that are now shut down and for failure to keep proper records.

In an agreement between the federal Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, and Del’s Metal Co., 1605 1st St., that was released Wednesday, the company agreed to pay the penalty within 30 days. The company also certified that it no longer operates the furnaces.

Christina Gasper, who spoke on behalf the company, said the furnaces have not been used since Del’s was inspected by the EPA in June 2005. The furnaces were being used in compliance with Illinois environmental regulations, she added. The company has paid the penalty.

“There are so many federal regulations that I don’t know how they can expect anyone to know all of them or memorize them,” she said.

“When they came and said there were problems, we immediately shut them down and they haven’t been used since. There is no evidence that we released any dioxin or anything else into the air.”

The EPA issued a finding of violations in November 2005 that said Del’s did not install afterburners on the two furnaces to stop potential release of dioxin, a substance thought to cause liver damage and cancer, and furans, another substance that may cause cancer.

The complaint lists no evidence that the substances ever were released by the company, but Del’s also was cited for failure to comply with the agency’s planning, notification and recordkeeping requirements.

The EPA initially proposed a penalty of $100,548. It lowered that after taking into account the size of the business, “Del’s full compliance history and good-faith efforts to comply, including discontinuance of its emissions sources, the duration of the violations, the economic benefit of noncompliance, the seriousness of the violations and other factors, as justice may require,” according to the agreement.

Del’s recycles metal, including aluminum and scrap metal. The smelters were used to melt scrap, Gasper said.

Tom Saul can be contacted at (563) 383-2453 or tsaul@qctimes.com.