Officials await EPA test results on gel leakage

Officials await EPA test results on gel leakage

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

CHAMPION — Criminal charges filed against a Maryland man who owns a former brick factory near the state Route 5 bypass (Warren Outerbelt) have not stopped him from worsening an already dangerous environmental problem, a Trumbull County deputy sheriff said.

Deputy Harold Firster said the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency was called to Champion last week to check on a gel-type substance that drained out of two large storage tanks and onto the ground at Diversified Resources International at the end of Folsom Drive.

Firster said the EPA hasn’t said yet what the substance is or if it is dangerous. One 4,000- to 5,000-gallon tank was emptied, and another was partially emptied onto the ground, Firster said. The substance didn’t have a noxious odor, he added.

The tanks were removed from the building by a company that was on the site dismantling the building, Firster said.

The dismantling process is causing additional amounts of a substance known as steel swarf to be exposed to rain and other weather, which makes the material more dangerous, Firster said.

The owner of Diversified Resources, Edgar Knieriem of Cockeysville, Md., was indicted this week by a Trumbull County grand jury on 12 counts of open burning and dumping for stockpiling between 8,000 and 10,000 tons of swarf at the site, which is a short distance west of the Kent State University Trumbull Campus.

Swarf is the grinding leftover or byproduct of certain manufacturing operations. Some of the steel swarf Diversified Resources has accepted since 1993 came from companies such as Crossman (a BB pellett manufacturer) and Caterpillar (heavy equipment), officials said.

Swarf can ignite on contact with air or water and produce flammable hydrogen gas, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Knieriem, who did not return a phone call Thursday, is due in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday to answer to the charges.

Firster filed charges against Knieriem in the spring, just after a demolition company removed portions of the building that was covering the swarf, exposing the material to the weather.

That demolition appeared to have stopped after the charges were filed, but Firster said parts of the building were still being removed on the inside.

Parts of the building’s exterior have also been removed recently on the side of the building not visible from the bypass, Firster said.

Firster has consulted with the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s office regarding legal action to stop Diversified Resources from dismantling any more of the building.

runyan@vindy.com