Environmental advocates have serious concerns about a history of permit violations at an East Chicago waste processing facility, and have urged the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to weigh the site’s track record in its ongoing re-permitting process. Tradebe Treatment and Recycling’s facility, located on Kennedy Avenue, stores, processes and recycles hazardous waste from a variety of industries. Records from IDEM and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show that the company has repeatedly violated environmental regulations and faced subsequent enforcement actions.
The company has a pending application for a renewal of its IDEM-issued hazardous waste management operating permit. The agency will hold a public hearing on the permit renewal application at 5 p.m. Sept. 10 at the East Chicago Public Library on West Chicago Avenue. Members of the public will be able to submit written comments to IDEM through Sept. 23.
In June, Tradebe agreed to pay $33,000 in civil penalties after IDEM inspectors found a series of permit violations including “rain leaking onto drums labeled ‘Dangerous when Wet.'” Earlier this month, Tradebe agreed to pay another $33,000 for more violations, many of which involved the improper storage and labeling of hazardous waste. Tradebe’s compliance issues go back years. An Aug. 5 IDEM internal memo noted 19 occasions between 2015 and 2023 during which agency staff found permit violations at the East Chicago facility. Problems included uncovered or damaged containers of waste as well as oxidizers and flammable materials stored together. That combination can pose a serious fire hazard, as oxidizing chemicals can serve to strengthen a combustion reaction.
“Available information was sufficient to justify the potential need for corrective actions across the facility,” IDEM hazardous waste permit section chief Don Stilz wrote in the memo.
On Monday, IDEM posted notice of a draft modification to Tradebe’s air permit that would include permission to operate a shredder for used chemical drums at its facility. The agency noted that the shredder had already been installed and operated without the company receiving regulatory permission.
“IDEM is reviewing this matter and will take appropriate action,” the IDEM notice reads.
In January, the EPA found that Tradebe had violated the 1970 Clean Air Act by failing to identify the shredder, which was installed in 2004, as a source of airborne emissions in a 2021 permit application submitted to IDEM. The agency found that Tradebe’s actions “have caused or can cause excess emissions” of potentially carcinogenic and smog-causing pollutants.
In a statement to The Times, a Tradebe spokesperson wrote that the company “works closely with local, state and federal regulators and there was some question about what permits were applicable — an issue that is being addressed.”
The public comment period for the air permit draft modification will end on Sept. 25.
Tradebe’s history has drawn scrutiny from community members and legal advocates.
“It’s being really poorly run,” Mark Templeton, director of the University of Chicago’s Abrams Environmental Law Clinic (AELC), said. His organization has partnered with the East Chicago Calumet Coalition Community Advisory Group, a local advocacy body.
“It doesn’t seem to be getting its act together because it seems like every single time EPA or IDEM shows up to do an inspection, there’s a whole bunch of particular issues,” Templeton said.
Tradebe’s hazardous waste draft permit includes plans to significantly grow the East Chicago facility. The Tradebe spokesperson wrote that the expansion “will make the facility more efficient, improve the workplace for Tradebe employees, present an attractive appearance for the surrounding area, and create hundreds of direct and indirect jobs including many from the East Chicago area.”
Templeton and his colleagues see the company’s plans as cause for concern. In a letter sent Wednesday to the EPA, the AELC asked the agency to closely scrutinize Tradebe’s pending hazardous waste management and air permits.
The EPA, the clinic wrote, should “urge IDEM and Tradebe to conduct a meaningful Environmental Justice analysis to assess the potential adverse and disproportionate impacts of Tradebe’s proposed expansion, and to withdraw the proposed draft permit until such analysis has been completed.”
The law clinic also asked the EPA to request that IDEM add permit language requiring that Tradebe provide written notice to IDEM within five days of receiving notice of alleged Clean Air Act violations in addition to tightening operating guidelines in other areas. Asked how Tradebe’s history of regulatory violations will factor into Tradebe’s permitting process, IDEM public information officer Barry Sneed wrote that the agency’s “permitting decisions are made based on the applicant’s ability to demonstrate compliance with applicable rules and regulations.”
“Prior deviations from permit conditions are evaluated to determine if a permittee can comply with the parameters of the permit, and applicants may be subject to additional permit conditions to support regulatory compliance,” he added. “The corrective action conditions of the draft permit would require Tradebe to install and maintain a groundwater monitoring well system at their existing location. It would also require Tradebe to submit information to IDEM to determine if additional actions are needed at the planned expansion property.”