Ohio Scrap Metal Recycler Agrees to Pay Fine to Resolve Environmental Violations

Three companies, all affiliated with one scrap metal facility, have reached a settlement with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Attorney General’s office. The settlement calls for the three companies to pay more than $75,000 in penalties to resolve solid waste and air pollution violations at a scrap metal facility in Youngstown.

The consent order was reached with Youngstown Iron & Metal Inc., the scrap metal recycling facility’s operator until 2009; WWW Land Inc., the property’s owner until 2010; and Metalico Youngstown Inc., the current facility operator and property owner. All three companies were named in a lawsuit filed by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office in the Mahoning County Court of Common Pleas.

According to an Ohio EPA notice, between 2000 and 2010, the facility accumulated multiple violations related to its scrap metal recycling and auto shredding operations. Violations included eight incidents of open burning in a restricted area, failing to report the fires to Ohio EPA and open dumping.

The facility also was cited for failing to keep shredded material in enclosed containers, enclose storage piles and maintain storage piles and equipment on concrete pads.

The violations were documented by Ohio EPA and the Mahoning-Trumbull Air Pollution Control Agency, Ohio EPA’s contractual representative for air pollution issues in the two counties.

Youngstown Iron & Metal and WWW Land’s combined $75,355 penalty included $21,952.50 to support state and local air pollution control programs, $21,952.50 to the Ohio Environmental Education Fund, $16,379 to the Environmental Protection Remediation Fund and $15,071 to Ohio EPA’s Clean Diesel School Bus Fund. The companies also paid $5,300 in enforcement costs to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.

Metalico Youngstown paid $750 to the school bus fund and $250 to the Ohio Secretary of State for operating nearly a month without a license. The consent order also gives the company 90 days to submit to Ohio EPA a complete and approvable air permit application covering all emissions sources at the facility.