'The smell of money' | INEOS plant closure will leave big impact on small town of Addyston

ADDYSTON, Ohio — Can a factory town survive without the factory? Addyston is confronting that question for the first time in its 133-year history.

The INEOS ABS plant has announced its closure, following a decommissioning process that will begin by next June.

The plant, which makes plastic polymers used in car parts, toys and other products, was originally built as a pipe foundry in 1889 by Matthew Addy. After he plotted its first streets to house factory workers, Addyston was incorporated in 1891. The pipe plant converted to plastics when Monsanto bought it in 1951. Since then, it was continuously operated by four owners - Monsanto, Bayer, Lanxess and INEOS.

In a press release and an Oct. 30 email to the village, INEOS blamed the closure on "growing competition from overseas imports" and a company analysis that showed the plant required a "substantial investment" to "achieve cost competitiveness." It also said it would decommission the plant in a "safe and responsible way."

The announcement stunned village leaders.

"I was devastated," said Addyston Mayor Lisa Mear. "This is going to seriously impact our community and our people here."

Mear said the plant's 180 employees pay about $300,000 in annual income tax, which covers more than a third of Addyston's total budget. Hamilton County records show the 87-acre plant also pays about $22,000 in annual property tax to Addyston.

Money is just the start of Mear's concerns.

"You've got all these structures," Mear said. "What are we supposed to do with that? If you're shutting down, I don't want a mess left here."

The WCPO 9 I-Team made several attempts to reach plant officials, but our calls and emails were routed to INEOS media relations, which provided a statement that reads in part:

"INEOS ABS will begin a safe and responsible decommissioning process in the second quarter of 2025. The safety of its employees, contractors, and the local community is the company's highest priority."

Decommissioning is a general term for taking out of service an asset that's at the end of its useful life. It can lead to environmental remediation, demolition or dismantling of a factory, but it isn't yet clear what is planned for Addyston. The I-Team sent a list of 18 questions to the company, which has yet to respond.

Mear said a plant official told her INEOS wants to "leave on good terms" and promised to work with environmental regulators to remove chemicals and decontaminate the site, which will be demolished if it isn't sold.

"We need to be communicating," said Dan Pillow, a former Addyston mayor who now serves on village council. "That's been a problem over the last several years. We need to know what's going on. We need to know about the remediation process to ensure that they are able to decommission that in a very safe manner."

Reasons for concern The plant has a history of environmental violations under multiple owners, including a spike in toxic chemical releases that led to the closure of an Addyston school in 2005.

That was followed by a 2009 consent decree with the U.S. EPA. INEOS and the plant's previous owner, Lanxess, agreed to pay a $3.1 million fine and spend $2 million on pollution control improvements.

INEOS, which gained control of the site in 2007, steadily reduced chemical emissions for seven years before they rose again in 2015, according to the EPA.

In September, INEOS agreed to pay a $181,420 penalty to the U.S. EPA for failing to monitor valves and connectors that are used to reduce emissions in 2017 and 2018.

Also in September, styrene releases from an INEOS rail car forced evacuations in Whitewater Township. The Federal Railroad Administration is investigating that incident.

That track record should prompt environmental regulators to scrutinize the plant's closure, said Adam Kron, a supervising senior attorney for Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm based in San Francisco.

"There is a real need for not just local government but Ohio EPA and hopefully U.S. EPA to take a close look at this and ensure that INEOS is meeting its obligations," Kron said. "We do want to ensure that whatever happens here, there's a proper clean up."

Kron is also concerned about the plant's ownership structure because Addyston isn't among the 45 locations listed as plant sites in financial reports by INEOS Quattro Holdings Limited, a British conglomerate that ranks among the world's 10 largest chemical companies. Its 2023 annual report describes INEOS ABS (U.S.) LLC as a "contract manufacturer" whose products are sold by an INEOS business unit, known as Styrolution.

"INEOS Styrolution acts as exclusive distributor for INEOS ABS (U.S.) in Addyston, Ohio, and has been the one face to the market for all its products since 2015," said the report. "Significant risks and rewards associated with selling the finished goods as well as the inventory risk remain with INEOS ABS."

Kron worries the structure could be used to avoid environmental liability.

"They can claim that INEOS ABS is bankrupt, for example, and that these costs won't be handled by the larger company, which we know is very profitable and continues to acquire a lot of other facilities while shutting down this one," Kron said.

'That's the smell of money' Former Addyston Mayor Dan Pillow said INEOS stopped paying a corporate earnings tax at about the same time INEOS Styrolution was formed.

He said plant officials explained to the village that they formed a "company within the company called Styrolution, and that group of about five entities (wasn't) making money. So, being in that group, they didn't have to pay any earnings tax. We didn't have the wherewithal to go to court and challenge something like that."

Pillow was born in Addyston and spent most of his 78 years there. He lives just a few doors down from where he grew up and served more than 20 years as mayor or member of council. On balance, he thinks his hometown was better off for having the plant, but he's mindful of the price it paid for that blessing.

"Everybody was concerned more about the smell of the place," Pillow said. "We used to say, 'Yeah, that's the smell of money.'"

Pillow was among the plant's defenders in 2005, as environmental activists organized West Side residents to demand regulatory action against the company following three accidental releases of toxic chemicals including styrene, acrylonitrile and 1,3 - butadiene.

Twenty years later, EPA data shows the plant hasn't come close to the 253,526 pounds of toxic chemicals released that year.

For example, styrene emissions – which can cause irritation in the skin, eyes and throat - declined from 107,007 pounds in 2005 to 24,260 in 2023.

Acrylonitrile – a probable human carcinogen that can cause respiratory irritation - dropped from 21,024 pounds to 9,236.

And 1,3 - butadiene – a carcinogen that can cause headaches, dizziness and respiratory irritation - dipped from 34,407 to 3,700 pounds.

Emissions improved, but Pillow argues Addyston's reputation did not.

"A little dirty, polluted town. Those words were being bandied about," Pillow said. "And it probably cost us a lot in the long run."

Although it wasn't widely known at the time, Pillow said the 2005 controversy erupted when Addyston was close to attracting a river-view subdivision to the community.

Hamilton County records confirm its health department was asked to "delineate the volume and extent" of an industrial waste dump on Church Street, "in preparation for development of a subdivision" in September 2005.

"The disposed material is described as off-spec foam core from Monsanto," said the report.

Foam core, also known as polystyrene, releases toxic chemicals when burned and is slow to break down in landfills.

Pillow said Addyston offered to help developers remove the material, but the project never got that far.

Pillow said the subdivision could have been a game changer for Addyston, which lost about 8% of its population since 2000 and suffers from a housing vacancy rate that's about double Hamilton County's average .

"I think it would have been very easy to sell, it would have added to our population and it would have probably brought in people with reasonable incomes," Pillow said.

With the plant entering its final days, Pillow wonders if INEOS might contribute to remediating the hilltop site where a former plant owner dumped foam core years ago.

"Everyone got something out of this but Addyston," Pillow said. "We didn't get a dime for the suffering that we went through as a village. We were the big loser in everything. Lost development. Lost the promises of building a better community and lost the fact that our community was so tight-knit at the time."