Ely’s Inc. stored over 10,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, a chemical that can permanently destroy lung tissue on contact, at a facility where the tanks had no vehicle barriers, no proper safety labels, and no emergency plan on file with the people responsible for saving your life if something went wrong.

What Ely’s Inc. Was Running and What the Law Required

Ely’s Inc. operates a fertilizer retail facility at 101 University Street in Guide Rock, Nebraska. The company is owned and operated by John Ely, its President. The facility stores and handles anhydrous ammonia, a substance used heavily in agricultural fertilizer operations across the American Midwest.

Anhydrous ammonia is a federally designated “regulated substance” under the Clean Air Act. The trigger for federal oversight is 10,000 pounds. Ely’s Inc. held more than that threshold at the time of the EPA inspection on September 26, 2023. That single fact activated a cascade of legal obligations the company simply ignored.

Federal law, specifically the Risk Management Program rules finalized by the EPA on June 20, 1996, required facilities storing regulated substances above threshold quantities to submit a Risk Management Plan covering hazard assessment, accident prevention, and emergency response. The deadline for initial submission was June 21, 1999. Ely’s Inc. did not have a compliant plan in place when the EPA showed up nearly 25 years later.

The Six Ways They Failed the Law Simultaneously

The EPA inspection did not find one problem. It found a systemic, total collapse of chemical safety compliance across every category the law requires. Ely’s Inc. failed to conduct a hazard assessment. They failed to document safe operating limits, equipment specifications, or safe pressure and flow ranges. They failed to produce written operating procedures for their anhydrous ammonia process.

Beyond paperwork, they failed to establish and implement a Mechanical Integrity Program, which is the physical maintenance and inspection regime required to make sure aging equipment does not fail catastrophically. The EPA notes that Ely’s Inc. “could not produce its plan during or after the inspection,” meaning the plan either never existed or no one could locate it. Both outcomes are alarming.

The emergency response failures compound every other failure. Ely’s Inc. never submitted its emergency action plan to the local emergency planning committee (LEPC). It never documented coordination with local authorities. Its emergency action plan contained no procedures for what to do during an ammonia emergency, no plan for informing the public about accidental releases, and no protocol for treating human exposures.

• No Hazard Assessment
• No Worst-Case Release Scenario
• No Safe Operating Limits Documentation
• No Written Operating Procedures
• No Mechanical Integrity Plan
• No Emergency Action Plan Filed with LEPC
• No Public Notification Procedures
• No Human Exposure Treatment Protocols
• Tanks Too Close Together
• No Vehicle Barrier Protection
• Piping Unlabeled for Liquid vs. Vapor Ammonia

The Human Cost They Never Planned For

Anhydrous ammonia is not a background chemical. It is an acutely toxic gas that, in its liquid form at a facility like this, exists under pressure. When it escapes containment, it expands instantly into a colorless cloud with a suffocating odor. It attacks moisture, specifically the moisture in your eyes, lungs, and skin. Exposure at high concentrations causes chemical burns to the respiratory tract, fluid buildup in the lungs, blindness, and death. This is the substance Ely’s Inc. stored in quantities exceeding 10,000 pounds with no documented emergency procedures for what to do when someone gets hurt.

The EPA order confirms that Ely’s Inc. failed to document “proper first-aid and emergency medical treatment necessary to treat accidental human exposures.” That sentence carries the weight of everything. A worker exposed to a leak at this facility would be in the hands of local responders who had never received the company’s emergency action plan, because Ely’s Inc. never submitted one to the local emergency planning committee. First responders arriving on scene would be operating blind, improvising their response to a chemical emergency without the facility-specific information the law mandated Ely’s Inc. provide.

The physical state of the tanks compounds this risk into something genuinely frightening. The two 70,000-pound bulk storage tanks were photographed by EPA inspectors sitting closer together than the industry-required minimum distance of five feet. After the inspection, Ely’s Inc. acknowledged this. The tanks also had no vehicle barriers protecting them from trucks, and Ely’s Inc. acknowledged that too. This is a working agricultural facility. Trucks move through it. A single impact to an improperly spaced, unprotected tank holding anhydrous ammonia in the quantities stored here is a community-level emergency, not just a workplace incident.

The piping infrastructure connecting these tanks was also unlabeled. Industry standards require piping to clearly indicate whether it carries liquid or vapor ammonia, because the two states behave differently in an emergency and require different response protocols. Without those labels, a maintenance worker, a contractor, or an emergency responder cannot know at a glance what they are dealing with. The EPA found that Ely’s Inc. used color coding without displaying the required legend sign explaining what those colors mean. A color code no one can read is the same as no code at all.

What makes this story land harder is its location. Guide Rock, Nebraska, is a small town. The kind of place where the fertilizer retailer on University Street is not an abstraction or a distant industrial zone. It is in the middle of the community. The people downwind of a catastrophic ammonia release from those tanks are the same people who have no idea this situation existed, because no community notification system was in place, because no partnership with emergency agencies was documented, because none of the required emergency planning was done. The law existed to make sure communities could protect themselves. Ely’s Inc. removed that protection without anyone in Guide Rock having a say.

Straight From the Government’s Own Document

These are direct quotations from the EPA’s Administrative Order for Compliance on Consent. Read them and remember: Ely’s Inc. agreed to all of this.

“The EPA inspection revealed that Respondent had failed to ensure and document that the process is designed in compliance with recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices.” EPA Order, Finding of Violation, Mechanical Integrity Section

“Photograph 14 of the inspection report shows two 70,000-pound bulk storage tanks that appear closer than the recommended distance… After the inspection, Respondent acknowledged that the bulk anhydrous ammonia tanks were less than 5 feet apart.” EPA Order, Finding of Violation §36(a)

“After the inspection, Respondent acknowledged that the tanks are vulnerable to trucks and other vehicles.” EPA Order, Finding of Violation §36(b) — the company’s own admission

“Respondent failed to include in the emergency action plan (EAP) procedures for anhydrous ammonia emergencies, including those informing the public about accidental releases, addressing accidental human exposures, or specifying emergency response.” EPA Order, Finding of Violation §32(c)

“Respondent had failed to establish and implement a written mechanical integrity plan that met all requirements of 40 C.F.R. Part 68. Respondent could not produce its plan during or after the inspection.” EPA Order, Finding of Violation §37 — the plan either never existed or vanished

The Damage Goes Beyond One Facility

Public Health: A Community Left Without Protection

The Clean Air Act’s Risk Management Program exists because Congress recognized in 1990 that chemical accidents at industrial facilities kill and injure ordinary people. The law mandated that facilities like Ely’s Inc. prepare worst-case release scenarios so that communities could understand the potential blast radius of a chemical event. Ely’s Inc. did not complete this analysis. The people of Guide Rock, Nebraska, had no federally-required emergency plan standing between them and a worst-case ammonia release.

A worst-case release from a bulk anhydrous ammonia system of this scale would generate a toxic vapor cloud. The area of potential impact extends well beyond the property line of any single facility. Anhydrous ammonia at concentrations above 300 parts per million causes severe pulmonary damage within minutes. The legal framework Ely’s Inc. sidestepped was specifically designed to prevent exactly this scenario from becoming a community tragedy. The company’s failure to file an emergency action plan with the local emergency planning committee means the local responders, the fire department, EMS, and emergency management, had a gap in their preparedness data for an active chemical hazard in their jurisdiction.

Ely’s Inc. also failed to document or establish a community notification system, which the EPA order explicitly requires as part of a compliant emergency action plan. The order mandates “partnering with these response agencies to ensure that a community notification system is in place to warn the public within the area potentially threatened by the accidental release.” The absence of such a system means that in an actual release event, the public’s first warning could have been the smell of ammonia reaching them on the wind, not an official alert giving them time to shelter in place or evacuate.

Economic Inequality: The Cost of Corporate Negligence Lands on the Public

When a private company skips legally required safety infrastructure, it is transferring risk from its own balance sheet onto the surrounding public. Ely’s Inc. saved money and time by not hiring engineers to document compliance, not establishing mechanical integrity programs, not coordinating with emergency planning committees, and not building vehicle barriers around their tanks. Every dollar not spent on those legal obligations was a dollar of risk transferred to the people of Guide Rock.

If an ammonia release had occurred before this order was issued, the cost of emergency response, medical treatment, environmental remediation, and potential litigation would have fallen on public emergency services, state agencies, and the affected individuals. The legal penalties Ely’s Inc. now faces if they fail to comply, up to $57,617 per day in administrative penalties or up to $121,275 per day in civil court penalties, are framed as consequences. The deeper reality is that those potential penalties exist because the public already absorbed the risk for however long this facility operated without compliance.

Small businesses frequently cite cost as a barrier to regulatory compliance. That argument collapses when you recognize that the “cost” of compliance is the price of not transferring catastrophic risk onto a community that had no voice in the decision. The regulatory framework Ely’s Inc. sidestepped exists precisely because history is littered with chemical disasters that devastated communities while the operators claimed they could not afford to do it safely.

What “Cutting Corners” Actually Means In Pounds

Who Is Watching and What You Can Do

The People Named in the Order

• John Ely — President, Ely’s Inc.; named as the Respondent’s contact and signatory on the compliance order
• David Cozad — Director, Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, EPA Region 7; signed the order on August 20, 2025
• Diana Chaney — Air Branch, Chemical Accident Prevention Section, EPA Region 7; compliance submissions go to her directly

The Watchlist: Who Has Authority Here

• U.S. EPA Region 7 — Issued this order; responsible for monitoring compliance and pursuing penalties if Ely’s Inc. fails to meet the 180-day deadline
• Nebraska State Emergency Response Commission — The state was formally notified of this action per Section 113(a)(4) of the Clean Air Act
• Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) for Webster County, Nebraska — The body that should have received Ely’s emergency action plan years ago and still needs to receive it under this order
• DOJ (U.S. Department of Justice) — Can be asked by EPA to commence criminal action under Section 113(c) of the Clean Air Act if violations continue

What People in Guide Rock and Surrounding Communities Can Do Right Now

Contact your Local Emergency Planning Committee and ask directly: do you have the emergency action plan for Ely’s Inc. on file? Do you have a community notification system in place for an ammonia release event? You have the legal right to ask, and they have the obligation to have this information. If the LEPC does not have it, that is a compliance failure that the EPA order is supposed to remedy, and your local officials need to hear that you are paying attention.

Connect with Nebraska environmental justice organizations and mutual aid networks who track agricultural chemical safety in rural communities. Find your county emergency management office. Show up to local government meetings. The law only protects you if someone enforces it, and enforcement gets stronger when communities demand it out loud.