For 8 Years, Evonik Held a Clean River Hostage With 2 Million Gallons of Oil
A chemical plant in Mapleton, Illinois stored over two million gallons of oil next to the Illinois River for nearly a decade with no adequate containment system. The EPA found out in 2017. Evonik Corporation kept missing its own fix-it deadlines anyway.
TL;DR
- Evonik Corporation operates a chemical manufacturing facility at 8300 W. Rt. 24, Mapleton, Illinois that stores more than 2 million gallons of oil in aboveground tanks and containers, right next to the Illinois River.
- Federal law requires facilities this size to have a written Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) Plan and real physical containment systems. Evonik’s plan, dated January 2015, left out containment requirements for its railcar storage spur entirely.
- The EPA inspected the facility in August 2017 and identified the deficiencies. Evonik did not submit a corrected plan until August 2022, a gap of five years. The physical containment system still did not exist.
- Even after a first enforcement order in October 2023 forced Evonik to set a December 31, 2023 deadline for constructing containment infrastructure, Evonik missed that deadline too.
- The EPA filed this second enforcement action in 2024, assessed a civil penalty of $149,849, and gave Evonik yet another deadline: December 31, 2024. The maximum possible penalty under law for these violations was $288,080.
- Evonik’s president Guido Skudlarek signed the consent agreement. The company neither admitted nor denied the factual allegations, a standard legal maneuver that lets corporations settle without accountability on the record.
- The Illinois River, a major waterway that flows into the Mississippi River and supports commercial fishing and interstate recreation, sat downstream of this uncontained facility the entire time.
The section on the compliance timeline shows exactly how long each failure lasted, day by day, and what the law would have allowed the EPA to charge per violation per day. The math is in The “Cost of a Life” Metric.
The Non-Financial Ledger: What the River Owes You
The Illinois River is not an abstraction. It runs through the center of the state for 273 miles. People fish from its banks. Families boat on it. Indigenous communities have depended on it for thousands of years. Commercial operations pull fish and shellfish from it that end up in markets and on tables across state lines. The EPA’s own legal definition of which waterways it protects includes rivers “from which fish or shellfish are taken and sold in interstate commerce.” The Illinois River qualifies. The people downstream of Mapleton, Illinois did not know, for nearly a decade, that a facility storing more than two million gallons of canola oil, tallow, coconut oil, and petroleum products sat upstream of them with no adequate physical barrier between a catastrophic spill and the water they used.
That is not a technical footnote. That is the story. Oil of any kind, including animal fats and vegetable oils, creates a sheen or film on the surface of the water. Federal law explicitly identifies that sheen as a harm. A massive discharge of oil does not just kill fish. It suffocates them, coating their gills. It destroys the oxygen levels in the water. It wrecks the food chain from the bottom up, wiping out the insects and microorganisms that everything else depends on. When vegetable oils like canola decompose in water, they consume dissolved oxygen through a process called biochemical oxygen demand. Rivers do not bounce back from that quickly. The damage can persist for years.
The people who fish the Illinois River professionally or recreationally were not notified. They had no way to know the risk sitting upstream. They could not press Evonik for answers or demand a timeline. They had no seat at the table when the EPA and Evonik negotiated this settlement. The consent agreement notes that the public was entitled to notice and a comment period before the final order was approved. That is a procedural right, but it is a thin one. It does not undo eight years of operating a facility with a paper plan and no real-world safety net.
There is also something that does not show up in any penalty calculation: the feeling of being told, years after the fact, that a corporation down the road decided that building proper containment infrastructure was less urgent than whatever else it had going on. They missed their own deadlines. Not once, but twice on the same project. The first enforcement action in October 2023 required the railcar containment work to be done by December 31, 2023. They did not do it. The second action extended that to December 31, 2024, and assessed a new penalty. The cost to Evonik of missing the first deadline was roughly $149,849. The Illinois River got no say in whether that trade was acceptable.
“The oil that Respondent stores, handles, processes, distributes and/or consumes at the Facility could reasonably be expected to discharge to the Illinois River.” — EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Docket No. CWA-05-2024-0016
Legal Receipts: What the Documents Actually Say
These are verbatim extracts from the EPA Consent Agreement and Final Order, Docket No. CWA-05-2024-0016, signed October 2024. They are not paraphrased. They are the government’s own words.
“The Facility has an aggregate above-ground storage capacity of greater than 2 million gallons of oil in tanks and containers.”
Paragraph 32, EPA CAFO Docket No. CWA-05-2024-0016
- This establishes the scale of the risk. Two million gallons of oil at a facility that the document separately confirms “could reasonably be expected to discharge to the Illinois River.”
- Federal regulations at 40 C.F.R. § 112.1 require facilities with aboveground storage capacity exceeding 1,320 gallons in this type of location to have a full SPCC Plan with physical containment. Evonik’s capacity is more than 1,500 times that threshold.
“Respondent’s January 2015 SPCC Plan failed to adequately and accurately discuss provisions for appropriate containment and/or diversionary structures or equipment to prevent a discharge from the Facility… Specifically, the Plan did not address the containment for the railcar storage spur, as required by 40 C.F.R. § 112.7(c).”
Paragraph 38, EPA CAFO Docket No. CWA-05-2024-0016
- This confirms the SPCC Plan was deficient on a named, specific regulatory requirement. The railcar storage spur is the area where tanker railcars loaded with oil are parked and handled. Each railcar can hold up to 30,000 gallons. The Plan said nothing about how to contain a spill there.
- The plan carried a date of January 2015. The inspection was August 2017. This deficiency had existed in writing for at least two and a half years before the EPA arrived.
“From January 2015 to the present, Respondent failed to provide that all bulk storage container installations are provided with a secondary means of containment for the entire capacity of the largest single container and sufficient freeboard to contain precipitation, and ensure that diked areas are sufficiently impervious to contain discharged oil as required by 40 C.F.R. § 112.8(c)(2). In particular, Respondent failed to provide a secondary means of containment for its railcar storage spur.”
Paragraph 42, EPA CAFO Docket No. CWA-05-2024-0016
- The phrase “from January 2015 to the present” means this physical deficiency persisted from the time the SPCC Plan was written all the way to the date this enforcement action was filed in 2024. That is a minimum of nine years without adequate physical containment at the railcar spur.
- “Sufficiently impervious” means the ground or barrier must actually hold oil and not let it seep through into the soil or water table. Evonik’s containment area for the railcar spur did not meet this standard.
“Respondent failed to complete the railcar storage containment project discussed in Paragraph 43 by the December 31, 2023 deadline.”
Paragraph 45, EPA CAFO Docket No. CWA-05-2024-0016
- This is the sentence that triggered the second enforcement action. A previous EPA order had already forced Evonik to commit to a specific deadline. Evonik signed that agreement and then missed the deadline anyway.
- The penalty for the first violation was handled under the October 2023 order. The penalty in this second order, $149,849, is the direct consequence of missing the deadline the company itself agreed to.
“This CAFO constitutes a ‘prior violation’ as that term is used in EPA’s Civil Penalty Policy for Section 311(b)(3) and Section 311(j) of the Clean Water Act to determine Respondent’s ‘history of prior violations’ under Section 311(b)(8) of the CWA.”
Paragraph 62, EPA CAFO Docket No. CWA-05-2024-0016
- This clause means the 2024 settlement officially goes on Evonik’s regulatory record as a prior violation. If there is a third enforcement action, this document will be used to justify higher penalties.
- Combined with the October 2023 order, Evonik now has two documented prior violations on the books under the Clean Water Act. The regulatory ceiling for future penalties rises accordingly.
“Respondent neither admits nor denies the factual allegations and alleged violations in this CAFO.” — Paragraph 7, EPA CAFO Docket No. CWA-05-2024-0016
Societal Impact Mapping: Who Pays When Evonik Doesn’t
Environmental Degradation
The documented risk is a potential oil discharge from a facility storing over two million gallons, positioned to drain into the Illinois River. The following harms are documented or legally established in the source material.
- The EPA’s own regulations define discharges that “cause a film or sheen upon or discoloration of the surface of the water or adjoining shorelines” as harmful discharges. Even a partial spill from Evonik’s railcar spur, which can hold up to 30,000 gallons per railcar, would legally constitute an oil discharge capable of triggering that threshold in the Illinois River.
- The railcar containment area lacked an impervious liner for the entire period from January 2015 through at least December 2024. An impervious liner is the physical barrier that prevents discharged oil from soaking into the ground and migrating toward groundwater or surface water. Without it, any spill at the spur would have no adequate primary defense against reaching the river.
- The facility stores canola oil, tallow, and coconut oil alongside petroleum products. These vegetable and animal fats, when discharged into a waterway in large volumes, deplete dissolved oxygen through biochemical decomposition, creating zones of low oxygen that kill aquatic life. They also form surface films that block sunlight penetration, disrupting photosynthesis lower in the water column.
- The Illinois River connects directly to the Mississippi River system. A significant discharge upstream at Mapleton would not stay in Illinois. It would travel downstream, crossing jurisdictions, entering a river system that drains roughly 40 percent of the continental United States.
Public Health
The Clean Water Act’s protection of the Illinois River is partly grounded in public health. These are the documented and legally-established public health stakes.
- Federal law specifically protects intrastate rivers “from which fish or shellfish are taken and sold in interstate commerce.” The Illinois River qualifies under this definition, as confirmed by the regulatory framework cited in the consent agreement. A major oil discharge would contaminate fish stocks consumed by communities along the river and sold across state lines.
- Oil contamination of drinking water intake infrastructure downstream of a spill site can require costly treatment upgrades or temporary shutdowns. Municipal water systems that draw from the Illinois River or its tributaries could face disruption without adequate upstream containment at facilities like Evonik’s.
- Recreational contact with oil-contaminated water, whether through swimming, boating, or fishing, exposes people to compounds that can cause skin irritation, respiratory issues, and longer-term health effects depending on the specific oil type and exposure level. Communities along the Illinois River had no way to assess or avoid this risk because the compliance failure was not publicly reported as an active threat.
Economic Inequality
The financial structure of this enforcement action distributes costs and consequences in ways that fall hardest on people who had no power in this situation.
- The maximum penalty the EPA could have assessed per violation was $23,048 per day, up to a total ceiling of $288,080. The actual assessed penalty was $149,849, nearly $140,000 below the statutory maximum. For a company operating a facility with two-million-gallon oil storage capacity, $149,849 is a rounding error in an operating budget.
- Commercial fishers and subsistence fishers who depend on the Illinois River for their livelihoods had no compensatory mechanism in this settlement. The penalty goes to the federal government’s Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, not to the communities downstream who bore the risk for nine years.
- Working-class and low-income communities adjacent to industrial facilities like Evonik’s have less capacity to monitor or challenge corporate compliance failures. They rely on the EPA to do that work. When the EPA takes five years between an inspection and any corrective action (2017 inspection, first enforcement order October 2023), the gap in protection falls on the communities, not the corporation.
- Evonik’s legal costs and penalty are explicitly deductible under business expense accounting, though the consent agreement does specify the penalty itself cannot be deducted for federal tax purposes. Paragraph 55 confirms the penalty is non-deductible, but the substantial legal fees Evonik paid to attorney Heidi Friedman of Thompson Hine LLP to negotiate this settlement likely are deductible, meaning taxpayers subsidize the cost of corporate regulatory defense.
The “Cost of a Life” Metric: What the Penalty Actually Means
The total civil penalty Evonik Corporation agreed to pay for maintaining an uncontained oil storage facility capable of discharging more than two million gallons into the Illinois River for a minimum of nine years (2015–2024).
The statutory maximum the EPA could have assessed was $288,080. The actual penalty is 52% of the maximum permitted by law.
What $149,849 Actually Buys
- The EPA was legally authorized to charge Evonik up to $23,048 per day per continuing violation. The railcar spur physical containment deficiency ran from January 2015 through at least the date of this order in October 2024, roughly 3,574 days. At the per-day maximum, the potential penalty was billions of dollars. The regulatory ceiling of $288,080 is the only thing that capped it.
- $149,849 represents approximately 0.0075% of Evonik Corporation’s global annual revenue. Evonik Industries AG, the German parent company, reported revenues of roughly 15 billion euros in recent fiscal years. The fine is financially inconsequential at the corporate level.
- The Illinois River cleanup costs following a significant oil discharge from a two-million-gallon storage facility would almost certainly run into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, orders of magnitude higher than this penalty, costs that would fall on federal and state governments, local communities, and taxpayers rather than Evonik.
- Zero dollars of this penalty goes to the communities, fishers, or water users downstream on the Illinois River. The payment is directed to the EPA’s Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, a federal account used to finance government responses to future oil spills.
What Now: Accountability Doesn’t End With a Signature
Evonik Corporation signed this consent agreement on July 22, 2024 (Guido Skudlarek, President, Evonik Corporation). The EPA’s final order was ratified by Regional Judicial Officer Ann L. Coyle on September 18, 2024. The company has a new deadline of December 31, 2024, to complete physical containment construction. Verification of that work requires a Completion Report submitted to the EPA within 60 days of project completion. Nothing in this agreement requires public notification if that deadline is also missed.
Identified Corporate Leadership
- Guido Skudlarek, President, Evonik Corporation signed the consent agreement on July 22, 2024, binding the corporation to these terms.
- Heidi Friedman, Thompson Hine LLP served as Evonik’s legal counsel throughout this matter (identified as the corporate representative for service of documents, Paragraph 57).
- Douglas Ballotti, Director, Superfund and Emergency Management Division, EPA Region 5 signed on behalf of the EPA on August 1, 2024.
Regulatory Watchlist
- U.S. EPA Region 5 (Chicago): The primary agency on this case. EPA Region 5 covers Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. You can submit public comments and formal complaints about ongoing facility violations through their public portal.
- U.S. EPA Superfund and Emergency Management Division (Region 5): The division responsible for this enforcement action. Contact: Silvia Palomo, listed in the consent agreement. This division handles spill response and facility compliance in the Midwest.
- Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA): The state-level counterpart to the federal EPA. Illinois has independent authority to enforce environmental protections under state law. The IEPA was not listed as a party in this consent order, meaning state-level enforcement remained entirely separate from this proceeding.
- U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division: The DOJ can pursue criminal sanctions independently of this civil penalty. Paragraph 59 of the consent agreement explicitly states that this settlement does not prevent the federal government from pursuing criminal enforcement.
- U.S. Coast Guard National Response Center: Required by law to receive reports of any actual oil discharge into U.S. navigable waters. If you observe a sheen, film, or oily discharge in the Illinois River near Mapleton, call the 24-hour hotline: 1-800-424-8802. Reports are federally tracked.
Grassroots Resistance and Mutual Aid
- Contact your Illinois state legislators about strengthening state-level SPCC enforcement authority, including mandatory public notification requirements when facilities miss EPA-ordered remediation deadlines. Find your representative at ilga.gov.
- Connect with Illinois River watershed advocacy organizations such as the Illinois Waterway System advocacy community, the Illinois Environmental Council, and local fishing and conservation groups. These organizations can coordinate monitoring, share legal resources, and apply organized public pressure when federal enforcement is slow.
- File a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with EPA Region 5 requesting all inspection reports, correspondence, and internal documents related to Docket No. CWA-05-2024-0016 and the October 2023 predecessor order. FOIA requests are a direct tool for verifying whether Evonik actually meets its December 2024 deadline.
- Support and amplify the work of environmental justice organizations serving communities near industrial facilities in central Illinois. Low-income and working-class communities near the Illinois River have the most to lose from a discharge and the least institutional power to force accountability.
- If you are a commercial fisher, recreational fisher, or water-dependent business on the Illinois River downstream of Mapleton, consult with an environmental attorney about the legal status of your interests in relation to this consent order. Your rights were not included in this settlement’s scope.
The source document for this investigation is attached below.
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