What $28,152 Cannot Buy Back

Imagine you are a firefighter with the Upper Allen Township Fire Department. It is two in the morning. Dispatch sends you to a warehouse on Allen Distribution Drive. There is smoke. A forklift may have caught fire. You pull on your gear, you ride in, and you walk into that building.

What you do not know is that building holds 33,599 pounds of sulfuric acid.

You do not know because Allen Distribution never told the people whose entire job is to tell you. Three years. Three consecutive years of legal deadlines missed. Three consecutive years of the Cumberland County Local Emergency Planning Commission waiting on paperwork that never came. Three consecutive years of first responders in that township having no idea that the batteries powering those forklifts contained enough sulfuric acid to kill or permanently injure multiple people if those containers fractured in a fire, spilled during a crash, or leaked during a rescue operation.

Sulfuric acid is not a minor irritant. At concentrations found in lead-acid batteries, contact with skin causes deep, progressive chemical burns that continue destroying tissue even after the initial exposure. Inhalation of vapors causes severe respiratory damage. It reacts violently with water, the substance firefighters use to fight fires, potentially generating explosive hydrogen gas and spraying acid in all directions. Emergency responders trained on this hazard approach it differently. They use different protective equipment. They set up decontamination zones. They coordinate with hazmat teams. Without the Tier II disclosure, none of that preparation happens automatically.

The residents of Mechanicsburg and the surrounding Cumberland County communities did not get to make an informed choice about living or working near this facility. The law specifically guarantees them that right. EPCRA, the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, was passed in 1986 in direct response to the Bhopal disaster in India, where a chemical plant leak killed thousands of people who had no idea what was stored in their neighborhood. The entire premise of the law is that communities deserve to know what is near them so they can plan, protect themselves, and hold companies accountable.

Allen Distribution’s violation was not a paperwork glitch. The company operated forklifts powered by 56 lead-acid batteries every single working day for three years. Those batteries did not appear overnight. The acid did not materialize by accident. Someone made a decision, or a series of decisions by omission, that resulted in this hazardous substance never being disclosed to the people legally entitled to that information. The fine is $28,152. Divided across three years of violations, that is less than $9,400 per year for keeping emergency planners in the dark about 17 tons of acid.

The people who work in that warehouse never had a say either. EPCRA exists partly because workers have a right to know what chemicals surround them on the job. The 33,599 pound figure was calculated from the 56 batteries reported by Allen Distribution itself. Those batteries sit in a facility where human beings work every day.

What the Documents Actually Say

These are direct quotes from EPA Docket No. EPCRA-03-2025-0070, filed April 15, 2025. Nothing below is paraphrased.

“The Cumberland County LEPC contacted the EPA to report that Respondent had not submitted annual Tier II Reports. Subsequently on October 25, 2023, the EPA issued an Information Request Letter (‘IRL’) to assess Respondent’s compliance with the emergency and hazardous chemical inventory reporting requirements of EPCRA.”

— Consent Agreement, Paragraph 27

• This confirms that Allen Distribution did not self-report or voluntarily come forward. The local emergency planning commission, the specific body that depends on Tier II filings to do its job, had to go directly to the EPA to flag the company’s non-compliance. The company was not caught by a federal inspection sweep; it was flagged by the community safety infrastructure it had been ignoring.
• The Information Request Letter was issued on October 25, 2023. By that point, Allen Distribution had already missed the March 1, 2022 deadline for 2021 data and the March 1, 2023 deadline for 2022 data. A third deadline, March 1, 2024, was still approaching.

“On November 30, 2023, in response to the IRL, Respondent stated the Facility contained a total of 56 lead acid batteries, one in each of 33 forklifts along with 23 spare batteries, with a total weight of 111,997 pounds.”

— Consent Agreement, Paragraph 28

• Allen Distribution’s own disclosure to the EPA confirmed the exact scale of the chemical inventory on site. The company told the EPA the battery count and total weight in response to the information request. This is the number the EPA used to calculate the sulfuric acid volume, since the company did not submit a Safety Data Sheet for the batteries.
• The 111,997-pound total battery weight, combined with the industry-standard figure that sulfuric acid makes up approximately 30% of lead-acid battery mass, yields the EPA’s calculated figure of approximately 33,599 pounds of sulfuric acid present during calendar years 2021, 2022, and 2023.

“Respondent did not submit an SDS for its lead acid batteries. However, according to industry literature sulfuric acid makes up approximately 30% of the weight of a lead acid battery. Thus, the EPA calculated the amount of sulfuric acid present at the Facility to be approximately 33,599 pounds in calendar years 2021, 2022, and 2023.”

— Consent Agreement, Paragraph 29

• The EPA had to calculate the sulfuric acid volume itself because Allen Distribution never submitted the required Safety Data Sheet for its batteries. The SDS is the document that would have disclosed the chemical composition. Without it, the EPA used public industry data to arrive at the figure. Allen Distribution’s own failure to file made quantification dependent on third-party estimation.
• The 500-pound federal reporting threshold for sulfuric acid as an EHS means Allen Distribution’s undisclosed quantity exceeded the legal minimum by a factor of approximately 67. This was not a borderline case.

“According to information submitted by Respondent to the EPA, on February 29, 2024, Respondent filed Tier II Reports for calendar years 2021, 2022, and 2023 with the SERC, LEPC and the local fire department. The Tier II Reports identify lead as the only hazardous substance at the Facility.”

— Consent Agreement, Paragraph 30

• This is the detail buried in paragraph 30 of the Consent Agreement. When Allen Distribution finally filed its three years of overdue reports in February 2024, it still did not disclose sulfuric acid. The belated filings listed only lead as the hazardous substance present. Sulfuric acid, the federally classified Extremely Hazardous Substance present in quantities 67 times the reporting threshold, was omitted a second time.
• This means the EPA had to bring three separate charges: Count I for the 2023 incomplete filing, Count II for the missing 2022 filing, and Count III for the missing 2021 filing. The late filings resolved only the absence of a report, not the content of it. The acid still did not appear in the official record until this enforcement action.

“Respondent submitted a Tier II Report for calendar year 2023 that failed to address each hazard category and each hazardous chemical present at the Facility, rendering the submission to the SERC, LEPC and local fire department incomplete. Specifically, the submitted Tier II form did not include the sulfuric acid present in the lead acid batteries located within the Facility.”

— Consent Agreement, Paragraph 33

• This paragraph makes explicit that even after the EPA’s investigation began, the report Allen Distribution submitted for calendar year 2023 was legally incomplete. The word “specifically” in this paragraph is the EPA’s way of saying: this was not a vague or technical deficiency. There was a named chemical, in a known location, in a documented quantity, and it was left off the form.

Who Gets Hurt When the Paperwork Disappears

Public Health

EPCRA’s Tier II reporting system exists as a direct safety infrastructure layer for communities. Its failure here had concrete, documented consequences for the people of Cumberland County.

• First responders worked blind for three years. The Upper Allen Township Fire Department, the fire department with jurisdiction over the Mechanicsburg facility, had no official record of 33,599 pounds of sulfuric acid on site. Sulfuric acid in a fire scenario requires hazmat-level response protocols, specialized protective equipment, and coordinated decontamination staging. Without a Tier II disclosure, a routine call to that building could have become a mass casualty event before anyone understood what chemical was involved.
• Warehouse workers had no guaranteed right-to-know. EPCRA and OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard together create a framework requiring that employees and their communities be informed about hazardous chemicals in their workplace. The failure to submit an SDS for the lead-acid batteries compounds this: workers in that facility had no documented chemical disclosure through the official emergency planning channel for the duration of the violation period.
• Sulfuric acid at these concentrations causes severe, irreversible injury. Battery-grade sulfuric acid is a concentrated strong acid. Dermal contact causes progressive chemical burns. Inhalation of vapors causes acute respiratory injury including pulmonary edema. Eye exposure causes permanent vision damage. In a spill or fire scenario inside a warehouse, multiple workers and first responders could be exposed before the nature of the hazard is identified. The scale of 33,599 pounds means this is a high-consequence scenario, not a minor handling risk.
• The Cumberland County community’s right to plan was violated. EPCRA creates not just a reporting obligation but a community planning entitlement. The Local Emergency Planning Commission uses Tier II data to model disaster response scenarios, allocate resources, and train personnel. Three years of missing data from a facility with 17 tons of an EHS means three years of gap in the county’s emergency preparedness infrastructure.

Economic Inequality

The penalty structure in this case reveals a systemic disparity: the financial consequence for concealing 33,599 pounds of an Extremely Hazardous Substance for three years is smaller than the cost of one used car.

• The $28,152 penalty is an accounting expense, not a deterrent. Allen Distribution operates a trucking and distribution network with facilities “both locally and nationally,” per the consent agreement. The penalty amounts to less than $9,400 per year of violation, and it is explicitly non-deductible for federal taxes, which means it has no secondary financial benefit to the company. But for a national trucking and distribution enterprise, $28,152 is a rounding error, not a business consequence.
• Workers and community members have no financial recourse in this settlement. The consent agreement resolves only the EPA’s civil penalty claims. It does not create a compensation mechanism for workers exposed to undisclosed hazards, for emergency responders who may have encountered the facility without adequate preparation, or for residents who had their community right-to-know violated for three years. There is no victim restitution in the terms of this agreement.
• The cost of non-compliance was cheaper than compliance. Filing Tier II reports is administratively straightforward and legally required. The fact that Allen Distribution missed three consecutive deadlines until a community body complained to the EPA suggests the company calculated, whether explicitly or by institutional indifference, that the risk of being caught and fined was lower than the cost of maintaining compliant reporting systems. At $28,152 for three years of violations, that calculation was, financially speaking, correct.
• Low-income and working-class residents bear disproportionate risk. Industrial distribution facilities are overwhelmingly sited in working-class and lower-income communities. The workers who operate forklifts in that warehouse and the residents who live near Allen Distribution Drive in Mechanicsburg are the people most directly exposed to the safety gap this violation created. They had no mechanism to discover the non-compliance until the LEPC, which itself depends on voluntary corporate disclosure, escalated to the EPA.

What Was Reported vs. What Was There

The Cost of a Life: What the Fine Actually Means

The Entities in This Case and How They Connect

What Accountability Requires Next

A $28,152 fine closed a legal case, but it did not build a safer reporting system. Here is who to contact, who to watch, and what communities can do.

Who Runs Allen Distribution

• Ryan Heishman, Chief Executive Officer of Allen Distribution, LP — signed the consent agreement on April 7, 2025 on behalf of the company. Reachable through the company’s registered address at 1532 Commerce Avenue, NW, Carlisle, PA 17105.
• Arthur Streeter — listed as a contact for Allen Distribution in the EPA’s Certificate of Service. Email: astreeter@allendistribution.com, per the court record.

Watchlist: Regulatory Bodies

• U.S. EPA Region 3 (Philadelphia): The enforcing body in this case. Enforcement & Compliance Assurance Division. Contact: EPA Region 3, 1650 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103. Case attorney: Ryan D. McDermott, mcdermott.ryan@epa.gov. EPA reserves the right to pursue further action if any information Allen Distribution provided proves to be false or materially inaccurate.
• Cumberland County LEPC: Located at 1 Public Safety Drive, Carlisle, PA 17103. This body caught the violation and reported it to the EPA. They are the community’s frontline check on whether nearby facilities are meeting their Tier II obligations. Support their work and monitor future Tier II disclosures from Allen Distribution in their database.
• Pennsylvania SERC (State Emergency Response Commission): PA Department of Labor and Industry, Bureau of Occupational and Industrial Safety, Pennsafe Program, 651 Boas Street, Room 1600, Harrisburg, PA 17121. They are one of the three bodies that must receive Tier II filings. Verify that Allen Distribution’s corrected filings are now complete and accurately reflect sulfuric acid.
• U.S. EPA ECHO Database (Enforcement and Compliance History Online): Public database at echo.epa.gov. Search Allen Distribution by facility address (150 Allen Distribution Drive, Building 19, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055) to monitor future compliance status and whether any additional violations are logged.
• OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration): The Hazard Communication Standard, 29 C.F.R. § 1910.1200, requires employers to maintain Safety Data Sheets for hazardous chemicals. The EPA consent agreement notes Allen Distribution never submitted an SDS for its lead-acid batteries. OSHA has independent authority to investigate worker right-to-know violations at this facility.

What Communities Can Do

• Look up your facility’s Tier II filings. Every state maintains a public Tier II database. In Pennsylvania, check the PA DEP EERP (Emergency and Hazardous Chemical Inventory) database. If a facility near you has gaps in its filing history, that is a reportable red flag. Contact your LEPC directly.
• Attend LEPC meetings. Local Emergency Planning Commissions are public bodies. Their meetings are open. They depend on community participation to function. Cumberland County’s LEPC did exactly what it was designed to do in this case. Showing up to those meetings and supporting their capacity to monitor facilities is direct community self-defense.
• File a formal complaint with the EPA if you know of unreported chemicals. The EPA’s EPCRA complaint process begins at epa.gov. You do not need to be an expert. You need a facility name, an address, and documentation that reporting deadlines were missed. The Cumberland County LEPC’s complaint in this case triggered a federal enforcement action. Yours can too.
• Support workers at Allen Distribution facilities. Workers in warehouses and distribution centers are the first to be exposed when a chemical incident occurs. If you know workers at this company, make sure they know about the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard and their legal right to access Safety Data Sheets for every chemical in their workplace.
• Demand stronger EPCRA penalties from your federal representatives. The maximum civil penalty per violation day under EPCRA has not kept pace with the cost of running a national distribution company. Contact your U.S. House representative and U.S. Senators to push for penalty levels that actually deter non-compliance, not just penalize it retroactively after community groups catch it.