State not joining scrap over recycling operation

A STEEL YARD: Rhode Island Recycled Metals, a scrap yard located on Allens Avenue in Providence, has faced action from DEM and CRMC this year. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE
A STEEL YARD: Rhode Island Recycled Metals, a scrap yard located on Allens Avenue in Providence, has faced action from DEM and CRMC this year. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE

Rhode Island Recycled Metals landed on the Providence waterfront with a splash three years ago when it purchased the derelict former Soviet submarine and tourist-attraction Juliett 484 and announced plans to demolish it.
Since then, the company has grown along with the scrap-metal recovery sector in Providence, expanded from five employees to 32, and proposed dredging the waters off its Allens Avenue property near the Interstate 95 entrance ramp to allow shipping.
Now, in addition to the rusted skeleton of the sub, which is still being taken apart, Rhode Island Recycled Metals has its own tangled mountain of scrap to rival Providence’s other major metal yards.
But with growth has come scrutiny.
Since last month, the business has been defending itself against accusations from environmental group Save The Bay that its operation is sending polluted stormwater runoff into the Providence River.
Save The Bay has asked state regulators to close Rhode Island Recycled Metals until it puts in place stormwater-control measures to prevent any chemicals from draining off the site.
Eddie Sciaba III, general manager of the company and son of the owner, says, however, the firm has been working with the state for two years, is “going through the permitting process and [is] in compliance. Everything [Save The Bay] said is just subjective opinion.” Save The Bay has never contacted the company directly about its concerns, Sciaba added.
Rhode Island Recycled Metals bought Juliett 484 in December of 2008 after the sub, parked at Collier Point Park and run as a museum, sank in a 2007 storm.
In August 2009, Rhode Island Recycled Metals secured a permit to break down the sub and had it towed to 434 Allens Avenue, where it has since expanded its metal-recovery operation to include other vessels, cars and assorted metals.
At the heart of Save The Bay’s complaint against Rhode Island Recycled Metals is the allegation that the company is breaking down equipment, including old cars, without the proper drainage system to collect contamination before it can get to the river.
Separately, Save The Bay said heavy equipment, including the treaded crane that picks up and deposits scrap, is damaging a cap meant to seal in old contamination on the property caused by previous users.
Save The Bay also claims floating booms that are supposed to surround the old submarine in the water and prevent contamination from escaping are either not there or washed up on the shore. “Every time it rains, the discharges from this facility violate the Clean Water Act,” Save The Bay Executive Director Jonathan Stone said in his letter to state regulators.
In addition to measures already spelled out in regulations, Save The Bay has suggested the entire Rhode Island Recycled Metals facility be covered by a large Quonset hut.
In some ways, the targets of Save The Bay’s complaint are the R.I. Department of Environmental Management and Coastal Resources Management Council, the agencies tasked with policing the waterfront.
Save The Bay said the agencies have allowed a permit initially granted for work on the Soviet sub to be used by an operation that has “mushroomed into an entirely different use.”
In April, the CRMC issued a cease-and-desist order for Rhode Island Recycled Metals when oil was spotted in the water around the Juliet without containment booms in place.
After the company deployed the containment booms, the cease-and-desist order was lifted.
Over the summer, the DEM issued a violation notice to Rhode Island Recycled Metals for spills and improper storage of automotive fluids and another for disturbing the soil cap over the site.
Another inspection in November found the material-storage violations had been fixed and there was no oil-related “sheening” on the river by the site, said David Chopy, chief of the compliance and inspection office for DEM. A Dec. 6 inspection of the site was cancelled.
So far, Chopy said, none of the violations have come with fines, because they did not appear intentional and the company is working to fix them.
“This wasn’t done with intent,” Chopy said. “It was more someone starting up a business and not knowing all the rules. We reserve penalties for people who knowingly break the rules.”
At the same time it monitors pollution complaints, DEM and CRMC are working with Rhode Island Recycled Metals on a comprehensive permit that will combine stormwater-protection measures along with dredging, waste handling and site conditions.
Chopy said conditions of the permit will include having Rhode Island Recycled Metals install a concrete pad on the site along with a crushed-stone trench and drainage system directing rainwater into a separator before discharge. “Ideally, they would have gotten the permits first, but we are working with them and they are cooperating with us,” Chopy said.
For Stone at Save The Bay, the promise that pollution controls will be installed at Rhode Island Recycled Metals soon isn’t good enough.
Thanks in large part to the $300 million combined-sewer-overflow project that came online in 2008, Narragansett Bay, and especially the upper bay near the city, has become significantly cleaner.
But Stone said such progress could be undermined if businesses feel they don’t have to comply with rules to curb runoff.
“Part of our concern is about backsliding,” Stone said. “What we don’t see there is progress and DEM is responsible for that progress.”
Questions about the environmental impact of Providence’s metal-recycling industry are likely to continue as the city’s scrap yards grow to meet rising metal prices and increased demand from developing countries.
To the south of Rhode Island Recycled Metals, Schnitzer Steel Industries runs the city’s oldest scrap-metal yard in ProvPort, along with a car-crushing operation in Johnston.
In October, Schnitzer’s biggest competitor and the largest metal recycler in the world, Sims Metal Management, bought the Promet Marine Services property on the north end of Allens Avenue and is turning it into the company’s primary New England export terminal. Sims is also planning a processing plant in Johnston.
Scrap and waste materials have been Rhode Island’s leading export for the last five years.
In 2010, before the arrival of Sims, Rhode Island companies shipped $528.83 million worth of waste and scrap, up 37 percent from 2009, according to government figures.
“The scrap-metals recycling industry is growing rapidly along the Providence waterfront – and along with it, a serious and ongoing threat to the Providence River,” Stone said in his letter to the state. “The lack of meaningful enforcement and regulation sets a bad precedent and sends a message to other businesses on the water that it is OK to illegally discharge in Rhode Island.”
So far, Save The Bay has not found any problems with the other two Providence scrap yards.
Stone said the Schnitzer facility is actually set back from the water and the Sims export terminal appears to comply with all stormwater rules. &#8226

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