Environmental Enforcement / Hazardous Waste / North Kansas City, MO

Toxic and Unlabeled: How Tnemec Ran a Poison Factory Inside Its Paint Factory

Source: U.S. EPA Region 7 Consent Agreement and Final Order, filed September 24, 2025  |  EvilCorporations.com Investigative Desk

A paint company that has known it generates large quantities of hazardous waste since 1990 was caught in 2024 storing open drums of carcinogenic solvent on the factory floor, without labels, without permits, and without telling a single regulator.

Meet the Company That Makes Coatings for Your World

Tnemec Company, Inc. manufactures paint and protective coatings at a facility located at 123 West 23rd Avenue in North Kansas City, Missouri. The company is incorporated under Missouri law and has been a legally recognized, large-scale generator of hazardous waste under federal law since March 8, 1990, when it formally notified the EPA of its regulated waste activities. That registration assigned Tnemec the RCRA identification number MOD007121841.

A “Large Quantity Generator” classification is reserved for facilities producing 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) or more of non-acute hazardous waste per month. That is the weight of a small car, in poison, every single month. Tnemec knew this designation, accepted this designation, and registered for this designation, which means Tnemec knew every legal obligation that came with it.

Federal law under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) exists precisely because industrial hazardous waste, when stored improperly, seeps into soil, contaminates groundwater, and exposes workers and nearby communities to toxic chemicals. The rules Tnemec broke are the rules designed to prevent exactly that.

The Inspection That Blew the Lid Off

On October 29, 2024, EPA inspectors conducted a formal RCRA Compliance Evaluation Inspection of Tnemec’s North Kansas City facility. What they found inside confirmed that Tnemec was simultaneously operating as a Large Quantity Generator, a Small Quantity Handler of universal waste, and a used oil generator, with violations across every dimension of hazardous waste management. The inspection report triggered a federal enforcement action.

The EPA filed and simultaneously resolved the action on September 24, 2025, through a Consent Agreement and Final Order under Section 3008(a) of RCRA. The process was designed to be quiet and quick: no public hearing, no jury, no courtroom, no criminal referral. Tnemec paid $20,000 (roughly what a full-time minimum wage worker earns in an entire year) and moved on.

Five Ways Tnemec Broke the Law, Simultaneously

The EPA documented five distinct categories of violations at Tnemec’s facility. Each one, standing alone, would strip the company of its right to store hazardous waste on-site for any length of time. Together, they paint a picture of a facility that treated federal hazardous waste law as a suggestion.

Violation 1: They Didn’t Even Check If Their Waste Was Dangerous

Federal law requires any company generating solid waste to formally determine whether that waste qualifies as hazardous. Tnemec skipped this step entirely for multiple waste streams present at the time of the inspection. Inspectors found a yellow-green liquid residue on the lid of a 55-gallon waste paint container, dried blue and green paint splatter covering a one-foot area of concrete floor, dried white paint splatter in multiple locations, and a massive multicolor splatter zone across a four-foot by four-foot area, an eight-foot-long area, and a nine-foot-long area on the floor of Building 4. Tnemec had conducted zero formal hazardous waste determinations on any of these.

Violation 2: Running a Hazardous Waste Storage Site Without a Permit

This is the big one. Federal law states that any facility storing, treating, or disposing of hazardous waste must hold a permit or qualify for interim status. Tnemec held neither. The moment the company failed to meet its generator requirements, it lost the legal authorization to store hazardous waste on-site for even a single day. Inspectors found it storing multiple drums, pails, and containers of toxic material, making the entire facility an unpermitted hazardous waste storage site.

Violation 3: Open Containers of Toxic Solvent, Everywhere

Inspectors found seven open hazardous waste containers across the facility. These included a 55-gallon drum of solvent unit cleanout waste containing multiple hazardous classifications (D001, D018, D035, F003, F005), a 5-gallon pail of the same on the second floor manufacturing area, and multiple open pails inside the secondary containment area of the Solvent Distillation section. Open containers of flammable, corrosive solvent waste in an active manufacturing facility represent a direct fire hazard and an immediate worker exposure risk.

Violation 4: No Labels. Workers Had No Idea What Was in Those Drums.

Federal law requires every hazardous waste container to be clearly marked with the words “Hazardous Waste.” Inspectors found nine containers with no identifying markings whatsoever. These included a 55-gallon drum of solvent-contaminated rags, a 55-gallon drum of waste paint in the Color Lab, multiple pails of solvent unit cleanout waste, and a 5-gallon pail of contaminated rags, all unlabeled. A worker who doesn’t know a container holds hazardous waste cannot protect themselves from it.

Violation 5: Staff Had Not Received Required Safety Training

Federal regulations require facility personnel in hazardous waste management roles to complete an annual refresher of their initial RCRA safety training. At the time of the inspection, at least one person in a hazardous waste management position had not completed this training. This is the baseline minimum designed to ensure someone at the facility actually knows what to do when something goes wrong.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What No Dollar Amount Can Repay

The legal document in this case counts violations, containers, and dollars. It does not count the workers who spent every shift in a building where open drums of D001, D018, F003, and F005 hazardous waste sat in unlabeled pails on the floor. D001 is the regulatory code for ignitable waste, the kind that can catch fire. D018 is the code for waste containing benzene, a chemical the World Health Organization classifies as a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning there is no known safe level of human exposure. F003 and F005 are codes for spent solvents, chemical compounds that attack the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system with chronic exposure. These were not stored in a sealed vault. They were open, on the floor, in the room where people worked.

Federal law requires hazardous waste containers to be clearly labeled with the words “Hazardous Waste” precisely because unlabeled containers kill people. A maintenance worker who opens the wrong pail. A new employee who doesn’t know what the brown liquid residue is. Someone who kicks a container over while carrying materials across a floor. Every one of these scenarios was legally possible, every day, because Tnemec chose convenience over compliance. Nine containers had no markings of any kind. Workers at this facility had no way to know, just by looking at a container, whether it could blind them, burn them, or give them cancer over the next decade.

The facility also failed to containerize hazardous solvent unit cleanout waste in the Solvent Distillation Area, meaning toxic chemical residue was present in an uncontained state in an active industrial space. Spills, splashes, and vapor inhalation become routine risks when hazardous waste is not properly contained. The chronic health consequences of repeated low-level solvent exposure, including neurological damage, reproductive harm, and elevated cancer risk, do not present themselves immediately. They accumulate over years. The worker who breathed in solvent fumes every day for five years at this facility will not know for decades whether Tnemec’s negligence cost them their health.

One person in a hazardous waste management role had not completed their mandatory annual safety refresher training. This training exists to ensure that someone at the facility knows what to do in an emergency, how to contain a spill, how to protect themselves and their coworkers, and how to recognize when a situation demands evacuation. Tnemec let that gap exist. The workers around that person had no guarantee that the person designated to manage their safety in a hazardous waste incident actually knew what they were doing. In a building full of flammable, carcinogenic solvents, that gap is not paperwork. It is a loaded risk distributed across every body in that building.

Straight From the Document: The Quotes That Condemn Them

“Because Respondent failed to comply with the generator requirements set forth above, Respondent was not authorized to store hazardous waste at the Facility for any length of time and therefore was operating a hazardous waste storage facility without a permit.” EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Paragraph 42

“At the time of the inspection, Respondent did not have a permit or interim status.” EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Paragraph 30

“At the time of the inspection, the following hazardous waste satellite accumulation containers were open: [including] One open and unlabeled ¼ full 55-gallon drum of solvent unit cleanout waste (D001/D018/D035/F003/F005 hazardous waste) in Building 1.” EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Paragraph 34(d)

“EPA reserves the right to enforce the terms and conditions of this Consent Agreement and Final Order… and to seek penalties against Respondent in an amount not to exceed Seventy-Four Thousand Nine Hundred Forty-Three Dollars ($74,943 — more than 3.5 times the actual fine levied) per day, per violation.” EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Paragraph 57

“Respondent: (b) neither admits nor denies the specific factual allegations stated herein.” EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Paragraph 43(b)

Who Actually Pays the Price Here

Public Health: The Workers Inside That Building

The hazardous waste codes cited in this enforcement action read like a chemistry syllabus on human harm. D001 designates ignitable waste, material that can catch fire under normal handling conditions. D018 designates waste containing benzene at concentrations at or above regulatory thresholds. Benzene causes leukemia. The International Agency for Research on Cancer places it in Group 1, the highest classification of confirmed human carcinogens. F003 and F005 cover spent halogenated and non-halogenated solvents, compounds that damage the liver, kidneys, and nervous system with repeated exposure. D035 covers methyl ethyl ketone waste, a solvent with known neurological effects at elevated exposure levels.

Open, unlabeled containers of these materials sat in an active manufacturing facility where human beings worked every day. The health consequences of solvent exposure are not always immediate. Benzene-related leukemia typically appears five to fifteen years after sustained exposure begins. A worker who breathed the vapor from that open, unlabeled, 55-gallon drum of D001/D018/D035/F003/F005 solvent waste in 2024 may not receive a diagnosis until 2034 or later. No line of this settlement compensates them. No clause of this order tests their blood. The fine has been paid and the case is closed.

Federal law requires annual hazardous waste training refreshers precisely because the consequences of mishandling these materials, accidental spills, fire, skin contact, inhalation, are severe and fast. At least one person whose job involved managing hazardous waste at this facility had not received that training. The other workers at the facility had no guarantee that the person responsible for hazardous waste management in an emergency was prepared for one.

Environmental Degradation: Uncontained Waste in an Urban Industrial Zone

Tnemec’s facility sits in North Kansas City, Missouri, an urban industrial corridor surrounded by working-class neighborhoods, warehouses, and commercial infrastructure. The inspectors found hazardous solvent waste that Tnemec had failed to containerize in the Solvent Distillation Area. Uncontained hazardous waste in an industrial facility is a spill event waiting to happen. When it happens, those chemicals follow the path of least resistance: floor drains, storm sewers, soil, and groundwater.

RCRA was enacted specifically because the United States generated massive volumes of industrial hazardous waste with nowhere safe to put it, and communities near improperly managed facilities bore the environmental burden. The law’s stated purpose, documented in this very enforcement order, is to “protect human health and the environment from potential hazards of waste disposal, conserve energy and natural resources, reduce the amount of waste generated, and ensure that wastes are managed in an environmentally sound manner.” Tnemec’s operating practices, as documented by federal inspectors, worked directly against every single one of those goals.

Economic Inequality: Who Gets Fined, and for How Much

The maximum civil penalty under current RCRA law is $124,426 per day, per violation. Tnemec generated five documented categories of violations. The theoretical maximum daily exposure for Tnemec was therefore over $622,000 per day. The actual penalty paid was $20,000 (roughly what a full-time minimum wage worker earns in an entire year). That is not a deterrent. That is a rounding error for a commercial paint manufacturer operating a multi-building industrial facility with a Solvent Distillation unit.

The penalty is explicitly non-deductible for tax purposes, which is the one piece of the settlement designed to actually sting. But the company paid its lawyer at Husch Blackwell, one of the largest corporate law firms in the Midwest, to negotiate a resolution that closed the case without a public hearing, without any admission of wrongdoing, and without any ongoing disclosure requirement to the community surrounding the facility. That legal access is not available to the workers inside the building. It is not available to the neighbors outside it. It is available to Tnemec, because Tnemec can afford it, and because the enforcement system is designed to resolve cases like this quietly and cheaply.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric