| Ohio EPA Fines Against Tube City |
| Wednesday, December 31, 2008 9:06:28 AM - Middletown Ohio |
 By: Tara Kunkle
The Tube City IMS that handles the materials for AK Steel's Middletown Works has agreed to pay $71,500 in fines to settle alleged violations of Ohio's air pollution laws. Where Tube City operates their slag dumping, cooling, handling, and processing before the slag is recycled into aggregate is where AK Steel owns property.
The Ohio EPA is administered by the Hamilton County Department of Enviromental Services. They found out that Tube City failed to comply with its air pollution control permits requirements. These included failure to keep visible emissions from the basic oxygen furnace slag pit to acceptable levels; causing nuisance dust emissions, that led to complaints; failure to install water sprays to continuously apply water to the slag during all dumping, excavation and loadout for the blast furnace slag pit; and failure to monitor dust conditions daily.
The investigating on Tube City began in 2006. There were several complaints from the Middletown residents. Most of them were about debris from the facility.
Part of the penalty will be paid to Ohio EPA's Clean Diesel School Bus Program Fund. This provides grants to school districts to retrofit school buses with pollution control equipment. $28,600 will go towards the state EPA's air pollution control programs and the remaining $28,600 will be going towards Ohio Enviromental Education Fund.
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