The man who owned the infamous Plastimet fire site in Hamilton, Ontario, is now at the center of a new environmental controversy in Hagersville.
Frank Levy is under investigation by Ontario's environment ministry for allegedly failing to comply with orders to clean up his Hagersville Recycling and Auto Wrecking Ltd. site on Indian Line.
Four separate cleanup orders were issued by the environment ministry last April and May.
The reason for the orders: Apparent oily contamination of ground and water on and around the property.
The ministry's investigation is ongoing.
Paul Thompson, the former environment ministry compliance officer who issued the orders against Hagersville Recycling, called the property's level of contamination "shocking."
Thompson no longer works for the province. He is employed by a waste-handling firm and has no involvement in the enforcement.
In a brief interview with The Spectator, Levy said he is involved in "ongoing discussions" with the environment ministry about the concerns.
"It's being worked on and I have no comment other than that," said Levy.
Roughly half of Levy's Hagersville site is used as an auto wrecking yard, while the other half is used to recycle scrap metal.
Hundreds of scrap cars are stored on the site, as well as several mountainous piles of old tires, which the Environment Ministry also cited as a concern in the orders issued against Hagersville Recycling.
Ministry reports say much of the contamination comes from automotive fluids that either leak out of the scrap cars or are forced out when the cars are crushed in a large machine.
Thompson said there were large areas of standing water up to 30 centimeters deep on the property that were contaminated with various automotive fluids. Other patches of ground were stained with the fluids.
"There were spills of many colors -- red, blue, black, brown," Thompson said in an interview.
Ministry reports noted that the contaminated water was migrating off the property from at least four locations, and that Levy himself confirmed this with Thompson.
The Environment Ministry also estimated that the number of scrap tires on the site exceeded the permissible limit of 5,000.
Scrap tires are a sensitive issue in Hagersville, which was the site of a huge tire fire in February 1990 when a blaze involving 14 million tires at another location burned for more than two weeks.
"It's always frustrating when we get to a scene, identify problems and they don't get corrected," Mark Dunn, supervisor for the MOE's Hamilton district office, said of Hagersville Recycling.
"Any time we issue an order to do work on a site, it's based on legitimate concerns."
Thompson told The Spectator that he made dozens of visits to the Hagersville Recycling site while he was with the ministry.
He said Levy was always polite and friendly during his visits, but ultimately did little to address the ministry's concerns.
The Environment Ministry has also raised concerns about a company operated by Levy's son, Monte. Plaza Integrated Industries Ltd. on Hillyard Street in Hamilton is a scrap metal recycler.
The ministry issued three compliance orders against Plaza Integrated in October 2003, January 2004 and April 2004 after receiving complaints that airborne dust and metal particles were blowing off the site and into the neighbourhood.
Plaza Integrated is not being investigated by the Environment Ministry and Dunn indicated that the company has taken steps to comply with the orders.
"Some problems were identified, we asked them to do some work and it was done," said Dunn. "At least there have been efforts made to solve the problems."
Monte Levy said his company has worked "very closely" with the ministry to address concerns. "Anything they've asked us to do, we've complied with their requests," he said.
The Levy family has been embroiled in a number of environmental and financial controversies for well over a decade, dating back to the days when the family owned and operated a Hamilton scrap-metal recycling company called Usarco.
In 1991, Frank and Monte Levy were each fined $10,000 after pleading guilty to 10 Environmental Protection Act charges related to chronic smoke emissions from Usarco.
By that time, Usarco had already gone into receivership, owing $1.4 million to more than 200 workers.
In 1993, the empty Usarco building on Wellington Street North was again placed in an unflattering spotlight after kids broke into an abandoned office and walked off with several liters of mercury. Four years later, on the same site, came the notorious Plastimet fire as hundreds of metric tons of plastic products destined for recycling burned for four days.
North end residents were outraged when Frank Levy, as the property owner, and Jack Lieberman, owner of the Plastimet business, eventually received suspended sentences, probation, and 50 hours each of community service after a plea bargain with the Environment Ministry.
By October 2000, Levy owed more than $5 million to the City of Hamilton for unpaid taxes on the Plastimet site as well as other former Usarco properties on Strathearne Avenue in the east end.
Levy no longer owns the Plastimet and Usarco properties.
In 2003, the city finally closed the books on the Plastimet site, now a park, by writing off about $6 million in unpaid taxes. Hamilton Spectator
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