NEWPORT, Ky. — Explosions at River Metals Recycling have again rocked homes in Newport, despite the company's promise to Newport that it would move its shredding operations by February and work to reduce the risk of explosions at the facility.
WCPO's media partner LINK nky reported Thursday that residents experienced two explosions at the plant recently, one on Dec. 3 and the other on Dec. 4.
“It would be humorous if it weren’t so sad,” Newport Commissioner Ken Rechtin told LINK nky. “It is sad that they are able to control this [explosions] and over the past couple of days have either decided not to or the controls aren’t in place.”
A history of explosions in Newport
WCPO has reported on the explosions at the plant, and the reverberating impacts through Newport neighborhoods, since 2021.
The recycling facility built a $300,000 sound barrier in September of 2021, after residents repeatedly complained about the years of explosions that shook surrounding homes.
Despite the sound wall, the recurring explosions continued to violate the city's noise ordinance laws and noise vibration code. Then, in 2022, Campbell County officials filed charges against River Metals Recycling for repeated code violations.
The explosions typically happen when a car with gasoline or a propane tank still left inside it is shredded within the RMR facility; in 2021, residents reported hearing as many as three explosions every day.
In February, RMR and Newport came to an agreement: RMR would move its shredding facilities out of Newport by February 2025 and work to mitigate any explosions at the facility in the meantime.
RMR said it would instead move the shredding operations to the former Garden Street Iron & Metal site in Cincinnati that it acquired in 2023.
Just one month after the agreement, in March, explosions again shook the ground in Newport — up to six times, Rechtin told WCPO.
In the meantime, the federal EPA is conducting an air quality monitoring study around RMR after community members expressed concerns about fumes and clouds released into the air following one of the explosions.
"We've got a lot of complaints from residents that it smells like, you know, they are coughing burns," said Andrea Ankrum, environmental health chair of the Northern Kentucky Sierra Club, told WCPO in February.
There’s also testing being done at Northern Kentucky University. Students have been collecting soil samples from the area surrounding River Metals Recycling in Newport.
"The City of Newport and the Clifton Heights Neighborhood Association contacted us because they were concerned about potential heavy metal and volatile organic chemicals coming from the activities at the RMR site," said Dr. Chris Curran, professor of biological sciences at NKU.
The students are collecting data that can serve as a jumping-off point for EPA officials moving forward.
"Our goal is to have this preliminary data that gives them an idea of where they should test what they should test for and that would be the final confirmation," Curran said.
So, what now?
As the current agreement stands, RMR is still scheduled to move its shredding facilities by February 20; it will still use the Newport site for sorting materials — but part of the agreement states that if the Cincinnati facility temporarily exceeds capacity, Newport can again become a site for shredding as long as it's for no more than 75 days every year.
RMR told residents it added resources to the Newport plant in the meantime to reduce combustion events at the facility.
Still, Newport resident and Chair of the RMR Citizen's Group, Annette Kitchen, told LINK nky it's apparent after the December explosions that still isn't enough.
Kitchen pointed to item three on a fact sheet distributed by RMR Vice President and General Manager Bob Eviston in April.
The item states, “Claim: RMR is no longer trying to prevent combustion events at its Newport facility. False: What is true is that after entry of the Order, pre-shredding inspection remained the same until recently when RMR added resources and reduced throughput in an effort to reduce the incidence of combustion events. We are looking forward to discussing these and other changes at our proposed meeting with city officials.”
“What have they done or not done in these past two days based upon this fact sheet their vice president and general manager sent that showed that they added resources,” Kitchen said. “Well, those resources failed.”
Kitchen and other residents are also back in touch with federal EPA officials working on the air quality study, after one resident's video of the December 4 explosion showed what appeared to be a blue cloud of particulate smoke releasing into the air.
It's not yet clear whether anything harmful has been released into the air or soil around RMR as the testing is still ongoing.
Still, Rechtin told LINK nky he felt RMR's continued explosions are unacceptable.
“There’s no reason this continues other than their lack of oversight,” Rechtin said. “It’s unacceptable to even allow this to happen once a year. This is not right. The citizens surrounding them deserve better.”
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