U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Justice have reached a settlement between the United States and Trialco Aluminum, LLC (Trialco) to resolve Clean Air Act (CAA) violations at the company?s facilities in Chicago Heights, Illinois. The parties have entered into a Consent Decree requiring that Trialco complete steps to achieve compliance with the Secondary Aluminum Production NESHAP (NESHAP) and its Federally Enforceable State Operating Permit (FESOP). The company has also agreed to pay a $1,000,000 civil penalty to resolve its alleged violations of the Clean Air Act.
Trialco is a secondary aluminum production facility that operates two furnaces, the Main Furnace (MF) and Small Furnace (SF), each equipped with a lime and ammonia-injected baghouse to reduce particulate matter (PM), dioxins and furans (D/F), hydrogen chloride (HCl), hydrogen fluoride (HF), and chlorine (Cl2) emissions. On January 4, 2019 and on March 27, 2023, EPA issued Trialco Notices and Findings of Violation (NOV/FOV) for violating operating limits and monitoring requirements for capture and collection, baghouse inlet temperature, lime injection rate and chlorine flux injection rate, in violation of the NESHAP. In addition, Trialco violated its FESOP by failing to operate its baghouses when the furnaces were operating, and failing to meet the HCl and PM limits on its SF. Immediately after issuance of the 2019 NOV/FOV, Trialco began implementing capital projects to achieve com