For at least four years, a major Portland manufacturing company pumped, processed, and handled hydrogen fluoride, nitrate compounds, and nitric acid at two facilities in southeast Portland, and the surrounding community had no idea, because the company simply never filed the federal reports that would have told them.

They Handled Toxic Chemicals for Four Years and Forgot to Tell Anyone

The Company and the Law They Broke

PCC Structurals, Inc. operates two facilities in southeast Portland. The Large Parts Campus sits at 4600 SE Harney Drive. The McLoughlin Annex sits at 2770 SE Mailwell Drive. Both facilities manufacture investment-cast metal parts, the kind used in aerospace and industrial applications, processes that routinely involve aggressive chemical treatments.

Federal law, specifically the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), requires manufacturers using significant quantities of listed toxic chemicals to file an annual Form R report with the EPA by July 1 of each year. That report tells regulators, local emergency planners, and the public exactly what toxic chemicals a facility used, how much, and where those chemicals went. The reporting threshold for hydrogen fluoride and nitric acid is 10,000 pounds used per year. For nitrate compounds, it is 25,000 pounds manufactured or processed per year. PCC Structurals cleared those thresholds. They just declined to tell anyone.

The law exists for an explicit reason: so that if something goes wrong, first responders know what they are walking into, and so that families living near industrial facilities can make informed decisions about their own health and safety. Every year PCC Structurals skipped a Form R filing was another year that right was denied to people living and working near those two Portland campuses.

The Chemicals They Kept Quiet

Hydrogen fluoride is not a benign industrial solvent. It penetrates skin on contact, travels directly into the bloodstream, and attacks bones from the inside. Acute exposure causes severe burns, cardiac arrest, and death. Chronic low-level exposure causes skeletal damage and neurological effects. It is one of the most hazardous industrial chemicals in common manufacturing use.

Nitric acid is a highly corrosive oxidizing acid. Exposure causes severe burns to skin, eyes, and respiratory tissue. Inhalation of its fumes causes pulmonary edema, a condition where the lungs fill with fluid. It is classified as an acute hazard and a respiratory toxicant. Nitrate compounds contribute to nitrogen pollution in water systems and can cause methemoglobinemia, a blood disorder that prevents oxygen transport, particularly dangerous for infants.

These are not obscure edge-case concerns. These are the exact reasons EPCRA was written into law in the first place, following the 1984 Bhopal disaster, where a chemical plant’s failure to disclose its toxic inventory to the surrounding community contributed directly to catastrophic mass casualties. The Form R system is the minimum floor of industrial transparency. PCC Structurals stayed below it for four years.

The Non-Financial Ledger

What the fine cannot price

The Right That Got Stolen, Quietly, For Years

Southeast Portland is a real neighborhood where real people live. Families own homes near SE Harney Drive and SE Mailwell Drive. Kids go to schools nearby. People jog, garden, and open their windows in summer. From 2019 through 2022, the residents of those neighborhoods had a federal legal right to know that a manufacturer in their midst was using and processing thousands of pounds of hydrogen fluoride, nitrate compounds, and nitric acid every year. That right was not exercised. It was quietly discarded by the company that owed it to them.

The Form R system is specifically designed to feed into local emergency planning. When local first responders, fire departments, and hazmat teams know what chemicals exist in their jurisdiction, they can pre-plan responses, stockpile antidotes, and train for the specific scenarios those chemicals create. Hydrogen fluoride burns demand a specific medical protocol involving calcium gluconate treatment, a protocol that a paramedic who does not know HF is on-site has no reason to prepare for. For at least four years, Portland emergency planners were working with an incomplete picture of what sat inside those two PCC Structurals facilities.

The violation is systemic rather than accidental. PCC Structurals missed Form R deadlines across two separate facilities, across three separate chemical categories, across four separate calendar years. This is not one filing that fell through the cracks during a pandemic or a staffing transition. The McLoughlin Annex missed hydrogen fluoride filings in 2019 and 2021. It missed nitrate compound filings in 2019 and 2021. It missed nitric acid filings in 2019, 2020, and 2021. The Large Parts Campus filed incomplete and inaccurate forms for 2020 and 2022. Twelve separate violations across two facilities, and not a single one proactively disclosed to regulators. The EPA found these failures during an inspection it initiated in September 2023.

The settlement agreement includes one of the most frustrating clauses in corporate accountability law: PCC Structurals “neither admits nor denies” the specific factual allegations. The company’s Vice President of Finance signed a document acknowledging the deal while simultaneously refusing to confirm the facts that make the deal necessary. That is a feature of the system, not a bug. It allows corporations to pay their way out of accountability without ever having to face the community they failed and say the words: “We knew. We processed these chemicals. We did not tell you.” The people of southeast Portland never get that acknowledgment. They get a press release number and a closed case file.

Legal Receipts

Verbatim from the federal consent agreement

“Respondent otherwise used hydrogen fluoride at the Mcloughlin Annex in excess of the threshold quantity during calendar years 2019 and 2021. Respondent failed to submit a Form R for hydrogen fluoride at the Mcloughlin Annex in a timely manner for calendar years 2019 and 2021 and therefore violated Section 313 of EPCRA.” EPA Consent Agreement, Section III, Paragraphs 3.11–3.12

“Respondent failed to submit a Form R for nitric acid at the Mcloughlin Annex in a timely manner for calendar years 2019, 2020, and 2021 and therefore violated Section 313 of EPCRA.” EPA Consent Agreement, Section III, Paragraph 3.16

“Respondent failed to accurately and completely document the releases, disposal, and other waste management of hydrogen fluoride and nitrate compounds at the Large Parts Campus in Form Rs submitted for the calendar year 2020, and of hydrogen fluoride, nitrate compounds, and nitric acid for the calendar year 2022.” EPA Consent Agreement, Section III, Paragraph 3.19

“Respondent neither admits nor denies the specific factual allegations contained in this Consent Agreement.” EPA Consent Agreement, Section IV, Paragraph 4.2

“Each day a violation of Section 313 of EPCRA continues constitutes a separate violation.” EPA Consent Agreement, Section III, Paragraph 3.20 — citing 42 U.S.C. § 11045(c)(3)

Societal Impact Mapping

Environmental Degradation: What Goes Unreported Gets Untracked

Form R filings serve a function that goes beyond administrative paperwork. They feed directly into the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), a publicly searchable national database that researchers, journalists, community advocates, and local governments use to understand cumulative chemical exposure in a given area. When PCC Structurals failed to submit accurate or timely reports for hydrogen fluoride, nitrate compounds, and nitric acid across four years, that data gap became permanent. Researchers studying air quality and water contamination in the Portland area were working from incomplete records.

The EPA’s consent agreement confirms that PCC Structurals did not merely miss deadlines at one facility. At the Large Parts Campus, the company submitted Form Rs for 2020 and 2022 but filled them out inaccurately and incompletely, specifically failing to document releases, disposal, and other waste management of the listed chemicals. That means even the data that existed in the system was wrong. Regulators and the public were not just missing information; they were receiving misinformation about what was entering the environment from these two southeast Portland sites.

Nitrate compound releases are a specific concern for Portland’s waterways. The Willamette River runs through the city, and southeast Portland’s industrial corridor drains into its tributaries. Nitrate pollution in water systems fuels algae blooms that deplete oxygen and kill aquatic life, and poses documented health risks to any community drawing from affected waterways. For four years, the volume and routing of nitrate compound waste from PCC Structurals was either unreported or inaccurately reported. That is four years of missing data in any cumulative environmental impact assessment of the area.

Public Health: The People Who Live Near SE Harney Drive Deserved to Know

Hydrogen fluoride is listed by the EPA itself as one of the most hazardous chemicals in industrial use. Its danger is compounded by the fact that it does not always cause immediate visible burns. HF penetrates intact skin, travels through tissue, and causes systemic toxicity, particularly by bonding with calcium and magnesium in the bloodstream, causing potentially fatal cardiac arrhythmias. A community living near a facility that uses HF in quantities exceeding 10,000 pounds annually has a direct, concrete interest in knowing that fact. EPCRA exists because Congress recognized that interest as a legal right, not a favor.

PCC Structurals violated that right at the McLoughlin Annex in 2019 and again in 2021. During those same years, the facility was also processing nitric acid, a chemical whose fumes cause delayed pulmonary edema, meaning a person can inhale a dangerous dose, feel fine for several hours, and then experience catastrophic lung failure. Workers inside the facility and people in the immediate surrounding area faced a risk that local emergency planners had no official reason to know about, because the filings that would have told them were never submitted.

The public health harm of transparency violations is always statistical and invisible until it is not. Communities do not know what they were not told until something goes wrong. The EPA’s September 2023 inspection was the first time regulators formally confirmed the scope of these failures. The residents of southeast Portland who lived near these facilities between 2019 and 2023 made daily decisions, about whether to open windows, whether to let children play outside, whether to trust the air, without information they were legally owed.

Economic Inequality: Who Pays, Who Profits, Who Absorbs the Risk

The $279,167 fine ($279,167 works out to roughly what the median Portland household earns in about four and a half years of full-time work) functions as a cost of doing business, rather than a meaningful deterrent. The maximum statutory penalty for PCC Structurals’ twelve violations would have been $852,000 ($852,000, enough to fully fund the salaries of a dozen Portland public school teachers for a year). The company received a 67% discount on that ceiling. The EPA’s own penalty structure allowed this outcome under standard settlement procedures.

The communities that absorb the risk of undisclosed chemical use near industrial facilities are disproportionately lower-income and less politically connected. Southeast Portland’s industrial corridor sits adjacent to neighborhoods where working-class families rent homes and raise children near manufacturing campuses. They do not have environmental lawyers on retainer. They do not have lobbyists monitoring EPA enforcement dockets. The Form R system was supposed to be the equalizer: a guaranteed floor of public information regardless of income or political access. When companies like PCC Structurals treat that floor as optional, the inequality embedded in industrial geography becomes invisible.

PCC Structurals, meanwhile, operates as a subsidiary of Precision Castparts Corp., a Berkshire Hathaway-owned industrial conglomerate. The $279,167 fine (roughly equivalent to what a Portland renter pays in rent over 9 years at median rates) is, for a Berkshire Hathaway portfolio company, a rounding error. The asymmetry between who absorbs the risk and who pays the penalty is the core economic injustice of the EPCRA enforcement system as it currently operates.

What Now?

The people with power over what happens next

Corporate Leadership on Record

The consent agreement was signed by PCC Structurals’ Vice President, Finance on behalf of the company. The company’s attorney of record in this matter is Geoffrey Tichenor. The EPA’s enforcement action was directed by Edward J. Kowalski, Director, Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, EPA Region 10.

Regulatory Watchlist

• EPA Region 10 (Seattle) — the agency that caught these violations and holds jurisdiction over future compliance at both Portland facilities.
• EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program — the public database that now depends on PCC Structurals filing accurate Form Rs going forward. Search it yourself at EPA.gov/toxics-release-inventory-tri-program.
• Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) — the state-level regulator that monitors industrial facilities in Oregon and can independently audit PCC Structurals’ ongoing chemical management.
• OSHA — the federal agency responsible for worker safety at facilities handling hydrogen fluoride and nitric acid; separate from EPCRA enforcement but directly relevant to employee exposure risk.
• The Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting — Precision Castparts Corp., PCC Structurals’ parent, is a Berkshire Hathaway company. Shareholders have standing to raise environmental compliance as a governance concern.

What You Can Do Right Now

Search your own neighborhood on the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory database at EPA.gov. Find out which facilities near you are required to report, and whether their filings are complete and on time. If they are missing or late, file a complaint directly with your regional EPA office. Connect with local environmental justice organizations in southeast Portland, such as those working in the Columbia Slough watershed, where community monitoring fills the gaps that corporate non-compliance creates. Mutual aid and grassroots environmental monitoring are the only tools that communities have that do not depend on corporate goodwill or regulatory bandwidth. Use them.