How Yellowstone Industrial Broke Federal Law Five Times and Paid Less Than a Used Car

EvilCorporations.com • Docket No. RCRA-05-2026-0026 • EPA Region 5 • Girard, Ohio • 6 min read

What This Actually Means for Girard, Ohio

Legal Receipts: What the Federal Order Actually Says

Every quote below is pulled verbatim from Docket No. RCRA-05-2026-0026. These are EPA’s own words.

“On May 29, 2025, Yellowstone stored two 300-gallon totes of hazardous waste pickling solution generated from April 14, 2025, spill clean-up from process tank 4, in a newly designated less than 90-day storage area. The two totes of hazardous waste pickling solution were offered for off-site disposal on August 15, 2025, thereby stored on-site for 123 days, and Respondent had not obtained a permit or interim status.”

• This confirms the waste was stored 33 days beyond the legal maximum without a permit. The 90-day rule exists precisely to prevent unpermitted facilities from becoming de facto hazardous waste storage sites.
• The waste was not removed until after the EPA inspection, suggesting the violation would have continued indefinitely without regulatory intervention.

“On May 29, 2025, Respondent failed to provide its employees with annual RCRA refresher training in 2025. Previous RCRA refresher training was conducted in February of 2024.”

• Annual training is a baseline safety requirement for any facility that handles hazardous waste. Yellowstone let the entire calendar year 2025 pass without completing it.
• This is not a paperwork technicality. Workers handling corrosive hazardous waste who have not received recent training on proper procedures and emergency response represent a real risk to themselves and others in the facility.

“On May 29, 2025, Respondent failed to demonstrate that it had submitted copies of the facility’s Contingency Plan to the local emergency authorities.”

• This means the firefighters, paramedics, and emergency responders who serve Girard had no documented knowledge of what hazardous materials were present at this facility or how to respond to an emergency there.
• The phrase “failed to demonstrate” means the company could not produce evidence this was ever done. The obligation to file the plan with local authorities is a firm legal requirement, not a recommendation.

“Respondent was using an area of the facility for storage of hazardous waste containers and re-characterized its hazardous waste stream and failed to amend the facility’s Contingency Plan to account for the new waste accumulation area and changes to hazardous waste stream characterization.”

• The facility created a new storage area and changed the type of waste it was classifying, two significant operational changes that legally require updating the contingency plan. Neither was done.
• A contingency plan that does not reflect the actual layout and actual waste streams at a facility is functionally useless in an emergency.

“On May 29, 2025, Respondent had failed to conduct eight (8) weekly inspections from April 11, 2025, to May 31, 2025, of its 90-day hazardous waste storage area.”

• Eight consecutive missed inspections means the facility went nearly seven weeks without anyone checking whether the hazardous waste containers were leaking, corroding, or deteriorating.
• The containers held corrosive pickling solution. Container degradation and leaks are among the primary risks RCRA inspection requirements are designed to catch early.

Public Deception: Compliance vs. What Was Actually Happening

RCRA operates on a disclosure and self-certification model. Generators of hazardous waste are trusted to follow the rules, file the required plans, conduct required inspections, and train their workers without constant surveillance. Yellowstone’s documented conduct shows what that trust looks like when it is not honored.

• Yellowstone was operating under the legal category of a generator storing waste for fewer than 90 days, which exempts it from a full hazardous waste storage permit. The documented reality: the waste sat for 123 days, voiding that exemption and making the storage legally unpermitted.
• As a facility handling hazardous waste, Yellowstone was presumed to be filing its contingency plan with local emergency authorities. No evidence that filing ever occurred could be produced during the inspection.
• The facility was presumed to be conducting weekly inspections of its hazardous waste storage containers. Eight consecutive inspections were not conducted.
• Workers at the facility were presumed to have received their annual RCRA safety refresher training. No 2025 training occurred.

Regulatory Gray Zones: The 90-Day Loophole That Made This Possible

RCRA’s 90-day accumulation exemption is a practical accommodation for generators, but its structure creates a compliance cliff with real consequences when ignored.

• Under RCRA and Ohio’s authorized hazardous waste program, a facility that generates hazardous waste on-site can store it for up to 90 days without obtaining a full hazardous waste storage permit. This exemption exists to reduce permitting burdens on manufacturers who generate waste as a byproduct and need time to arrange proper disposal. It is not designed to function as an indefinite storage authorization.
• Yellowstone appears to have designated a “less than 90-day storage area” specifically for the pickling solution from the April 2025 spill. The designation of the area as less-than-90-day storage is itself a legal acknowledgment of the time limit. Despite this, the waste remained for 123 days.
• The critical regulatory mechanism: once a generator fails to comply with the conditions of the 90-day exemption (including the time limit), they do not simply lose the exemption. They become retroactively subject to the full suite of hazardous waste storage facility requirements under Ohio Admin. Code Chapter 3745-65, including training, contingency planning, and container inspection rules. This is the legal trigger that transformed the single storage violation into five separate violations.
• The 90-day rule is self-monitored. There is no regulator checking a calendar for each facility. EPA only discovered the 123-day storage duration during a scheduled inspection and subsequent document review. The system depends entirely on the generator’s own compliance.

Profit-Maximization at All Costs: What Was Saved by Cutting Corners

Every violation documented in this case corresponds to a cost that Yellowstone Industrial avoided paying: permit fees, training costs, plan submission compliance work, and the labor time required to conduct weekly inspections.

• Obtaining a hazardous waste storage permit or interim status, the alternative to complying with the 90-day exemption conditions, requires formal application, facility modifications, ongoing compliance documentation, and regulatory oversight. The company avoided that process by simply not meeting the exemption conditions and not seeking a permit.
• Annual RCRA refresher training requires scheduling, materials, and staff time. Yellowstone did not conduct it for the entire 2025 calendar year, saving those costs.
• Filing a contingency plan with local emergency authorities and maintaining an updated plan requires staff time and legal/compliance review when operational changes occur. Both requirements were unmet.
• The total civil penalty for all five violations: $7,500. This is not a fine calibrated to exceed what was saved. This is a fine that, for a commercial manufacturing operation, is likely smaller than a month of basic compliance labor costs.

Societal Impact Mapping: Who Bore the Risk Yellowstone Created

Public Health

The failures documented in this case created a measurable increase in risk for specific groups of people.

• Workers at Yellowstone Industrial handled or worked near two 300-gallon totes of corrosive hazardous pickling solution for 123 days without the required safety training having been completed in 2025. Workers who have not received current training on hazardous waste handling and emergency response procedures are at greater risk of improper exposure or failure to respond correctly to a release.
• First responders in Girard, Ohio were never given the facility’s contingency plan, which is the document that tells emergency personnel what hazardous materials are on-site, where they are located, and how to respond to an incident. In the event of a fire, explosion, or spill during the period of non-compliance, these responders would have arrived without critical safety information.
• The containers holding hazardous pickling solution went uninspected for eight consecutive weeks. RCRA’s weekly inspection requirement exists because container failure is a real and documented risk. Leaks of corrosive industrial acid can expose workers, contaminate flooring and drainage systems, and create secondary hazards. No inspections means no early detection.
• The facility’s contingency plan was not updated to reflect the new storage area or the reclassified waste stream. An outdated emergency plan is structurally worse than no plan in a scenario where responders follow it expecting conditions that no longer exist.

Economic Inequality

Girard is a working-class industrial city. The people most directly exposed to the risks created by Yellowstone’s violations are the least resourced to challenge them.

• Industrial workers at the facility are unlikely to have independent legal resources to investigate or challenge non-compliance at their workplace. RCRA compliance failures of this type are discovered through government inspections, not through worker-initiated complaints documented in this case.
• The $7,500 penalty creates a price signal for industrial facilities in similar operating contexts. For a manufacturing operation, $7,500 is a cost of doing business, not a deterrent. Facilities that cannot afford full compliance have a rational financial incentive to take the risk, pay the fine if caught, and continue. Facilities with stronger financial positions can simply absorb the fine without behavioral change.
• The residents of Girard bear the ambient risk of being near a facility that has demonstrated a pattern of non-compliance, while the financial consequences of that non-compliance are absorbed almost entirely by the federal government collecting a nominal fee.

The Settlement Isn’t Justice: What $7,500 Actually Buys

The agreement explicitly states that Yellowstone “neither admits nor denies the factual allegations.” The company paid a fine and the case is closed.

• The settlement resolves “only Respondent’s liability for federal civil penalties under Section 3008(a) of RCRA.” It does not establish any finding of fact about the violations in any future proceeding. It does not create a public admission that any of these events occurred.
• The fine is not tax-deductible, which is a minor structural disincentive built into federal penalty practice. The agreement explicitly notes: “The civil penalty is not deductible for federal tax purposes.” This is worth noting, but it does not transform $7,500 into a meaningful deterrent for a commercial manufacturing facility.
• EPA reserves the right to pursue future violations but this settlement closes the books on five documented regulatory failures. No injunctive relief, no court-ordered compliance monitoring, no independent auditing requirement, and no mandatory reporting to the local community appears in this order.
• The workers who were not trained, the first responders who never received the contingency plan, and the community that bore the risk of uninspected hazardous waste containers receive nothing from this settlement. The penalty goes to the federal government.
• The company certified that “the alleged violations have been corrected.” This self-certification, subject to penalties for false submission to the government, is the primary mechanism for verifying that the facility is now compliant. There is no documented third-party verification requirement in this order.