THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2008
Niles To Keep Eye On Paint Plant Pollution
By TOM ROBB
Journal & Topics Reporter
A report identifying a Niles company as being one of the area's leading airborne polluters contains outdated information, village officials said this week.
The report said that Avery Dennison Company's paint plant on Howard Street in Niles released a pollutant called diisocyanates for which they had an EPA license to legally do so. After investigating the story's claims, the Journal found that some things at the plant, including its ownership, had changed, while other things, such as its product lines, have stayed the same.
Data in the report was based on self-reported numbers to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2005.
Village Manager George Van Geem and Acting Mayor Robert Callero said they looked into claim and found the report cited outdated EPA information from 2005. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spokesman Dale Kemery said the publisher of the article used the most recent data available.
Avery Dennison began operating the Niles plant in 1999. It sold the plant to Ennis Paint in 2006.
Ennis spokesman Scott Seeley said the company has continued the same lines of production at the plant since it took over. One of its lines includes production of reflective raised road markers.
Seeley said airborne emissions of diisocyanates were down 51% in a period from the end of 2005 to the end of 2007. The plant still emits 1.6 tons of volatile organic chemicals (VOC's) a year, he added.
U.S. EPA officials said that overall emissions at the plant in 2005 spewed 1.3 tons of VOC's of which diisocyanates made up two thirds. Ennis' EPA permit allows it to release 24 tons of VOC's a year, according to Seeley.
Seeley confirmed that in 2005 the plant had the third highest levels of diisocyanates in Cook County. He said the company is currently in the 50th percentile as far as polluters overall in the region.
The two nearest air-monitoring stations are in Des Plaines and Northbrook. Those stations report airborne particulate matter and other pollutants at a level of 13. The highest levels in the country are at 16, Illinois EPA officials said. The air in the Northern suburbs away from Lake Michigan contains less heavy metals than areas on the south side of Chicago near more heavy manufacturing centers, according to the Illinois EPA.
Acting Niles Mayor Robert Callero said the village will be closely monitoring the company and that village inspectors will be sent to the plant in the coming months to check on the amount of diisocyanates emitted.
Village Trustee Andrew Przybylo was critical of the EPA's oversight likening it to the federal oversight of Wall Street.
Ennis managers did not immediately return phone calls to village officials after the story broke, so Callero sent Van Geem to visit the plant personally.
Van Geem said the plant manager told him they only use a small amount of the chemical and that it is rendered inert by the process.
Seeley said that, though the chemical process makes the diisocyanates inert, during the process there is an airborne release that is not inert. Van Geem claims the plant manager did not tell him that there was an airborne release before the chemical was made inert.
Local Ennis representatives refused to comment on the story.
Van Geem said a large tank full of diisocyanates is located on the plant's grounds. He said the Niles Fire Dept. has never been called to the plant for any kind of spill, release or any other hazardous materials situation.
Kemery said the report was only a broad indicator that used information about individual plant's emissions and did not paint a full picture of a community's overall air quality, as it does not consider variables affecting air quality such as emissions from vehicular traffic.
A $500,000 capital project is in the works, according to Seeley, to further reduce emissions at the plant.