Madison Heights chemical firm fined $1.45M, owner sent to prison

A Madison Heights chemical plating firm shut down by state regulators three years ago has been ordered to pay nearly $1.5 million and its owner sent to federal prison for illegally storing dangerous chemicals in leaky containers.

Electro-Plating Services and its owner, Gary Sayers, were ordered Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy to pay $1.45 million in restitution to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the extensive cleanup the agency conducted at the EPS plant at 945 E. 10 Mile Road. 

Sayers was also sentenced to serve a year in prison followed by three years of supervised release after pleading guilty earlier this year to a federal hazardous waste storage felony. 

The Electro-Plating Services plant was shut down by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (now the Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy,  EGLE)  in December 2016 after regulators found numerous deteriorating drums and tanks brimming with toxic chemicals stored inside. 

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According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit, Sayers stored the hazardous waste in numerous drums and other containers, including a pit dug into the ground in the lower level of the EPS building, rather than transporting old chemicals to a licensed hazardous waste facility.

The chemicals included cyanide, chromium, nickel, chloride, trichloroethylene, and various acids and bases that were used as part of the plating process.

Sayers for years stonewalled state efforts to get him to legally deal with the hazardous wastes, the federal government said.  After the state shut the facility down, the EPA spent nearly $1.5 million cleaning up the plant as part of a Superfund removal action.

Sayers and the company were charged in January by federal prosecutors with violating the U.S. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Guilty pleas were entered in February to the felony charge.

The plant is within 500 feet of residences, the state has said. In addition, the Madison Heights Fire Department, an ambulance service, nine day care centers, schools and senior living facilities are within 1 mile of the facility, the state said at the time it closed the plant down.

The MDEQ said it found chemicals and waste stockpiled in extreme disorder and chemical spills throughout the building, which was severely dilapidated. According to the MDEQ, a combination of cyanide and hydrochloric acid on the site with large amounts of water could have produced a highly toxic cloud of hydrogen cyanide.

According to federal court documents, the company has a long history of violating hazardous waste storage standards, dating to 1996. The company was issued numerous letters of warning and Sayers pleaded guilty in 2005 to state criminal charges involving illegal transportation of hazardous waste.