Alleged Polluter Fined, Could Shutter

A fabric-coating chemical manufacturer on Lenox Street has been fined over $305,000 for allegedly violating a federal air-pollution law — and must now clean up its act, or shut down entirely, by this summer.

That’s the word from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which announced at the end of March that it had reached a settlement with the New Haven-based facility of Trelleborg Coated Systems US, Inc., for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. 

Under the settlement, Trelleborg must pay a penalty of $305,305. Tt must also come into compliance with the federal Clean Air Act or permanently shut down its operations by July 1.

“This settlement will result in improved air quality for the people of New Haven, a community that has historically been overburdened by environmental pollution,” EPA New England Regional Administrator David W. Cash is quoted as saying in a March 27 press release. ​“No one should be worried that the air that they breathe has been compromised due to a company’s alleged failure to follow federal laws, and I’m glad to say the community of New Haven is now better protected as a result of EPA’s action.”

Trelleborg is a Swedish company with operations in 48 countries involving over 20,000 employees. Its facility on Lenox Street in Fair Haven Heights, in the words of the EPA’s announcement, ​“primarily performs urethane coating and laminating processes on various fabrics to achieve water and chemical repellant and flame-retardant properties.” These fabrics are used for everything from protective vests to blood pressure cuffs, to mattresses and aircraft escape slides.

The process that led to the settlement began in 2019, when the EPA conducted routine testing of the facility and followed it up with a Clean Air Act inspection in December of that year. 

Trelleborg was targeted because its coating processes, if not done properly, can lead to the emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) — that is, fumes — that, as the EPA stated, ​“may produce adverse health effects such as eye, nose, and throat irritation; headaches; nausea; and damage to liver, kidney, and central nervous system. Moreover, emissions of VOCs contribute to the formation of ground level ozone, which is not emitted directly into the air, but is created by chemical reactions between oxides of nitrogen and VOCs in the presence of sunlight. Ground level ozone can trigger various respiratory problems and can also harm sensitive vegetation and ecosystems.”

The urethane from a coating process like the one Trelleborg uses generates a lot of fumes. In a properly functioning coating operation, those fumes are essentially contained in a booth and then burned off, turning the VOCs into less volatile substances like carbon dioxide and water, but also like nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide, which is what can cause ground-level ozone and must be kept to certain threshold levels.

The EPA’s actions have drawn the involvement of the city government. ​“Due to the longstanding concerns about this facility, the City is in active conversations with Trelleborg about a plant closure schedule,” said New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker.

Based on its 2019 inspection, under the Clean Air Act, EPA ordered Trelleborg to test its emissions level — both inside the facility, where emissions should be contained, and in its chimney, which would test for levels of emissions leaving the facility. The tests were done on equipment for which Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) had issued a permit in July 2007.

The initial EPA inspection alleged that ​“Trelleborg had various violations” of its DEEP permit — that is, the machinery was not containing emissions as it was supposed to. That machinery consisted of ​“six coating lines and two laminating lines, the associated capture systems … and the control system.” The results of Trelleborg’s tests of the emissions from the chimney of its facility suggested that not enough VOCs were being burned off, and therefore the facility was ​“emitting hazardous air pollutants.”

The EPA reported that, since 2020, Trelleborg’s emissions have been decreasing, in part because operations at the Fair Haven Heights facility have declined. Trelleborg also did more containment work in 2021; it ​“installed more robust enclosures around the coating lines and welded shut two bypass vents located on the roof.” But it wasn’t enough to avoid its current fines, or its threat to shut down.

Trelleborg’s problems at its Lenox Street facility are part of larger pattern of incurring penalties and fines for a variety of business practices. The EPA reported that it ​“brought a similar action against Trelleborg’s affiliated entity in North Smithfield, Rhode Island a few years ago.” In late 2022, Nasdaq Sweden ordered Trelleborg to pay four annual fees totaling over $900,000 for running afoul of disclosure rules regarding information about the sale of a wheels manufacturing part of its business. In 2009, two Trelleborg subsidiaries, one of them based in Virginia, paid $11 million in fines for ​“their participation in separate conspiracies affecting the sales of marine products sold in the United States and elsewhere.”

In New Haven in 2017, Trelleborg was involved in a labor dispute with UNITE HERE Local 151, the union that represents its workers, over its layoff rules. As the Independent reported at the time, workers in the Lenox Street facility ​“first unionized in 1987 to protest dangerous conditions at the plant.” (Read New York Times coverage of that strike; in 1987 the plant was owned by Uretek, which Trelleborg acquired in 2014.) A New Haven Trelleborg employee named William Wilkes told the Independent back in 2017 that workers have experienced crushed limbs, burns, hair caught in machinery and asthma from chemical exposure because of hazardous conditions at the plant.

“Due to the longstanding concerns about this facility, the City is in active conversations with Trelleborg about a plant closure schedule,” Mayor Justin Elicker told the Independent in a comment for this article. 

“While there are no specific plans or proposals in place, our goal is for the site to eventually be redeveloped for other purposes that will benefit the community. We’re also committed to supporting the existing workforce at the Trelleborg facility by helping to connect employees to other job opportunities, including a jobs and resources fair and other initiatives. As our discussions with Trelleborg continue, I appreciate the EPA’s action and CT DEEP’s work to ensure that Trelleborg operates in a manner that adheres to federal and state laws.”

Trelleborg declined to comment for this article, and the regional representative for Local 151 could not be reached for comment.