NEWS

Exide fined $820,000 for Muncie pollution

Seth Slabaugh
seths@muncie.gannett.com

MUNCIE – Exide Technologies has agreed to pay an $820,000 civil penalty to settle a lawsuit accusing it of violating the Clean Air Act at its Muncie lead smelter, which recycles millions of lead-acid automotive, truck and other batteries.

The violations resulted in increased emissions of lead and particulate matter (soot), and might have resulted in increased emissions of total hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds and dioxin/furans, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“This settlement will protect Muncie residents from excess lead emissions ... and prevent future violations of the Clean Air Act,” Susan Hedman, administrator of EPA’s Great Lakes region, said in a prepared statement. “Exposure to lead can impair children’s health and their ability to learn.”

The settlement in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis also requires Exide to spend $4 million to install state-of-the art pollution control equipment at the facility in the southside Industria Centre.

Exide announced last week that it would immediately move to close its lead-acid battery recycling facility in Vernon, Calif., under the terms of a non-prosecution agreement reached with federal prosecutors in California to settle a criminal investigation of the company.

One of the world’s largest producers and recyclers of lead-acid batteries, Exide is continuing to take steps to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

While recycling hazardous lead-acid automotive batteries keeps them from being dumped in landfills, illegally dumped or shipped to other countries where regulations are lacking, Exide’s recycling facilities in Muncie and other locations often are cited for environmental violations themselves.

The pollutants Exide is accused of releasing into the air in Muncie can affect the nervous system, the reproductive systems in men and women, get deep into the lungs and aggravate asthma, and help form ground-level ozone associated with reduced lung function, according to the lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. In the case of 2,3,7,8, TCDD, the most well-known member of the dioxin/furans family, the emissions are a suspected human carcinogen.

The Muncie facility is called a secondary lead smelter. Primary lead is mined. Secondary lead is recovered from spent batteries.

In 2009, the Muncie Exide smelter agreed to pay the Indiana Department of Environmental Management a $97,500 civil penalty for polluting the air in Muncie with lead. In 2007, it paid IDEM a penalty of $115,400 to the state for alleged air violations on the heels of a $62,500 penalty for hazardous waste violations.

More recently, the state has accused the Muncie facility of neglecting its contingency plan for emergencies like fire, explosions and spills; cracks and gaps in a containment building that could lead to a fire or explosion; improper storage of furnace slag beyond a boundary; and brown-colored, lead-contaminated water along a storage area and rail spur as well as dead vegetation near a ditch leading to a storm drain.

Contact Seth Slabaugh at (765) 213-5834.