EPA settles with Alro Steel for violations

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 5 recently settled a case of hazardous chemical reporting violations involving Alro Steel Corp., Jackson, Michigan.

The consent agreement and final order applies to Alro facilities in Lansing, Michigan, Melrose Park, Illinois, and Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Federal law requires that state and local authorities be notified of hazardous chemical storage. In the event of a fire or emergency, responders need to know what they are dealing with so they can take steps to protect people living or working in the area.

Alro Steel paid $120,000 to resolve the EPA notice that the company failed to submit to state and local authorities in four locations, the required chemical inventory forms for a variety of hazardous chemicals. The hazardous chemicals Alro used in its processing of steel include hydrogen, cutting fluid, acrylic enamels, chemtane, methane, propylene, propane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide gas, oxygen, argon and acetylene. Alro also has sulfuric acid and lead in its lead-acid batteries that must be reported.