6,085 Clean Air Act Violations in Chicago. One Tiny Fine.

Investigative Report  |  EvilCorporations.com  |  Source: EPA Region 5 Consent Agreement and Final Order, Filed August 7, 2025

A steel company on Chicago’s Far South Side broke the legal limit on its hydrochloric acid tanks 6,085 times over three years, and the federal government settled every single violation for a total of $49,900 (about the annual salary of a warehouse worker in Illinois, before taxes).

What Nacme Did, and When They Did It

Nacme Steel Processing, LLC operates a continuous steel coil pickling facility at 429 W. 127th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60628. A pickling facility is an industrial operation that strips rust and scale from steel using large tanks filled with hydrochloric acid (HCl). The facility runs four of these acid tanks in series, connected to a scrubber system designed to capture HCl gas before it escapes into the surrounding air.

The facility’s operating permit, issued by the Illinois EPA in 2016 and federally enforceable under the Clean Air Act, set a hard limit: pickling tank temperatures could not exceed 190°F. The reason for that limit is straightforward: the hotter the acid, the more HCl gas it releases. A temperature cap is one of the core controls keeping toxic gas from floating out of that facility and into the lungs of the people living nearby.

According to records Nacme itself handed over to the EPA, the company exceeded that 190°F temperature limit on 6,085 separate occasions between September 25, 2018, and December 10, 2021. That is a span of roughly 38 months, or approximately 1,172 days. Averaged out, Nacme breached its legal temperature limit more than five times per day, every single day, for over three years.

The EPA Showed Up. Eventually.

The EPA inspected the facility on December 9, 2021. The agency then issued a formal information request on March 21, 2022, demanding records. Nacme responded in May 2022 with data going back to January 2018, which is precisely how the 6,085 violations became documented. The EPA issued its Notice of Violation on January 24, 2023. The consent agreement settling the case was filed on August 7, 2025.

From the first documented violation to the final signed settlement: nearly seven years. From the inspection to the settlement: nearly four years. For the people living around 127th Street, that timeline is not a bureaucratic footnote. It is years of potential exposure without any public resolution.

$49,900: The Price Tag on 6,085 Violations

The EPA assessed a total civil penalty of $49,900 (roughly the cost of a year’s childcare for two kids in Chicago). That amount settles every single one of the 6,085 documented violations. Divide it out and each individual violation of Nacme’s toxic gas temperature limit cost the company approximately $8.20 (less than the average delivery fee on a DoorDash order).

The Clean Air Act actually allows the EPA to pursue civil penalties of up to $124,426 per day per violation. Applied to 6,085 violations, a maximum-penalty scenario would produce a number in the billions. The EPA settled for $49,900 (less than what a first-year associate at a corporate law firm bills in a single week). The agency does not explain in the document what drove the settlement number down to this level beyond citing Nacme’s “cooperation.”

“The EPA has determined that an appropriate civil penalty to settle this action is $49,900.” That is $8.20 per violation. The legal maximum per day was $124,426.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What Money Cannot Measure

ZIP code 60628 sits on Chicago’s Far South Side, a community that is predominantly Black and Latino, with a median household income that falls well below the city average. This is not background color. This is the essential context for understanding who lived downwind from 6,085 temperature exceedances in an acid-tank operation and who bore the cost of those violations in their lungs, their children’s lungs, and their daily quality of life.

Hydrochloric acid gas is not a benign emission. At elevated concentrations, HCl exposure causes immediate burning of the eyes, nose, and throat. It triggers coughing, choking, and respiratory inflammation. Chronic low-level exposure aggravates asthma, damages lung tissue, and worsens cardiovascular conditions. For anyone in that neighborhood who already had respiratory illness, each one of those 6,085 temperature exceedances was a compounding insult. The scrubber was supposed to contain the gas, but the temperature limit existed precisely because operating hot tanks stresses scrubber performance and increases the risk of HCl escaping the control system entirely.

The people who lived, worked, and sent their kids to school in the shadow of 429 W. 127th Street had no way of knowing their air quality was being compromised more than five times a day on average. They were not informed. They were not compensated. They were not even included in the resolution process. A settlement was negotiated between a federal agency and a limited liability company, and the community that absorbed the risk got a document filed with a hearing clerk. That is the full extent of their participation in this outcome.

The dignity cost here is specific and measurable in its own way: three years of legal violations, followed by two more years of enforcement proceedings, followed by a fine that a mid-sized steel processor can treat as a rounding error. The message encoded in that $49,900 (roughly the down payment on a modest Chicago home) is heard clearly in communities like Roseland and West Pullman: your air is worth less than their convenience. Your lungs are a line item. The system designed to protect you set the price, and the price is eight dollars and twenty cents per offense.

Three years of acid tank violations. A seven-year gap from first breach to final order. The community at 127th Street never got a seat at the table where the settlement was negotiated.

There is also the matter of what Nacme was permitted to keep doing throughout this entire period. The settlement resolves only the specific violations cited. It does not require Nacme to shut down, relocate, or compensate any person harmed. The facility continues to operate. The acid tanks remain. A revised permit process is mentioned in the document, but the community’s exposure to this facility is ongoing, and the regulatory machinery that failed to catch these violations for three years is the same machinery now responsible for monitoring future compliance.

Legal Receipts: The Documents Speak

“Nacme violated condition 9(a)(iv) of its FESOP by exceeding the maximum pickling tank temperature of 190°F in the pickling tanks on 6,085 occasions, from September 25, 2018, to December 10, 2021.”

Section E, Allegations — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, CAA-05-2025-0039

“Based on an analysis of the factors specified in Section 113(e) of the CAA, 42 U.S.C. § 7413(e), the facts of this case, and Respondent’s cooperation, the EPA has determined that an appropriate civil penalty to settle this action is $49,900.”

Section F, Paragraph 29 — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, CAA-05-2025-0039

“Respondent: neither admits nor denies the allegations stated in Section E of this CAFO; consents to the assessment of a civil penalty as stated below; waives any right to contest the allegations set forth in Section E of this CAFO; and waives its right to appeal this CAFO.”

Section F, Paragraph 27 — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, CAA-05-2025-0039

“Any violation of this CAFO may result in a civil judicial action for an injunction or civil penalties of up to $124,426 per day per violation, or both, as provided in Section 113(b) of the CAA, 42 U.S.C. § 7413(b).”

Section G, Paragraph 46 — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, CAA-05-2025-0039

“Nothing in this CAFO limits the power of the EPA to undertake any action against Respondent or any person in response to conditions that may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to the public health, welfare, or the environment.”

Section G, Paragraph 48 — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, CAA-05-2025-0039

Societal Impact Mapping

Public Health: Acid in the Air Over a Residential Neighborhood

The regulatory framework around Nacme’s facility exists because hydrochloric acid gas is a documented respiratory hazard. The operating permit capped tank temperatures at 190°F specifically because higher temperatures increase HCl vaporization. When those temperatures were exceeded 6,085 times, the scrubber control system designed to capture that gas was operating under greater stress than it was designed and tested to handle. The permit did not set a comfort guideline. It set a threshold tied directly to emission rates.

The EPA’s own permit language makes this explicit: Nacme’s approval to operate was issued based on emissions of HCl remaining “negligible,” not exceeding 0.1 lb/hour and 0.44 ton/year. Those limits were derived from the maximum production rate, the most recent stack test data, and the specific operational parameters including the 190°F cap. Operating above that temperature for three years means the facility operated outside the tested and verified conditions that justified its permitted emissions ceiling. Whether HCl actually escaped into the neighborhood air in detectable quantities during those exceedances is not answered in this document. The EPA did not publish air quality monitoring data from the surrounding area as part of this settlement.

Chicago’s Far South Side already carries a disproportionate environmental burden. Industrial facilities, legacy pollution, and inadequate green space concentrate in communities of color in ways that are well-documented by public health researchers. Nacme’s 6,085 violations did not occur in a vacuum. They occurred on top of an existing baseline of pollution stress that residents of 60628 did not choose and cannot simply leave behind.

Economic Inequality: Who Pays for Environmental Violations, and Who Doesn’t

The $49,900 (roughly equivalent to the annual take-home pay of a Chicago public school teaching assistant) fine represents the entire financial consequence Nacme faces for over three years of documented violations. There is no restitution fund for residents. There is no community health monitoring requirement embedded in the settlement. There is no requirement that Nacme publish its compliance data for public review. The settlement resolves Nacme’s federal civil liability and nothing else.

Meanwhile, the people who live near the facility continue to absorb the externalized costs: potential health effects, reduced property values associated with proximity to industrial polluters, and the psychological burden of knowing that a facility in their neighborhood operated illegally for years with no meaningful consequence. Those costs are not tracked in any regulatory document. They do not appear in the $49,900 settlement figure. The regulatory system is designed to assess corporate penalties, not to compensate communities.

The maximum statutory penalty of $124,426 per day per violation exists on paper as a deterrent. It clearly did not deter Nacme. A fine capped at $49,900 total for 6,085 violations functions less like a deterrent and more like a permit fee paid in arrears. Companies with sophisticated legal and operational teams can calculate in advance that the risk-adjusted cost of noncompliance is negligible compared to the cost of operational modifications that would guarantee compliance. That calculation is exactly what the settlement number confirms.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

What Now: Watchlist and Next Steps

The settlement is signed. Nacme pays its fine and walks. But the regulatory bodies listed below still have jurisdiction, and the community around 127th Street still deserves answers. Here is who has power in this situation and what you can demand from them.

• EPA Region 5 (Chicago): The agency that negotiated this settlement. Demand they publish air quality monitoring data for ZIP code 60628 covering the 2018-2021 violation period. Contact: R5airenforcement@epa.gov
• Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA): The state agency that issues Nacme’s operating permit and received a copy of the Notice of Violation. They have authority over the revised permit process currently underway.
• EPA Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights: This office exists specifically to address situations where pollution burdens fall disproportionately on communities of color. A formal complaint about the 60628 situation is within scope.
• U.S. Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division: The DOJ jointly reviewed this case and agreed to administrative rather than criminal proceedings. That decision deserves public scrutiny.
• Chicago Department of Public Health: Request cumulative health impact data for the Far South Side industrial corridor, including 127th Street. This data should be public and should inform permit renewal decisions.
• OSHA: Workers inside the Nacme facility were also exposed to conditions created by temperature exceedances. Hydrochloric acid is an OSHA-regulated substance. Worker exposure records should be reviewed.

Beyond the regulatory watchlist: the residents of Roseland, West Pullman, and the broader Far South Side have every right to organize, attend public permit hearings, and demand that Nacme’s revised FESOP application include community air monitoring, public disclosure of temperature and emissions data in real time, and a genuine public comment period. Local environmental justice organizations, block clubs, and mutual aid networks in 60628 are the most direct path to accountability that a $49,900 settlement cannot provide. The regulators set the price. The community decides whether to accept it.