Digging into regulators' records at the Carus Chemical plant, where fire raged
CHICAGO (CBS) -- In the wake of an extra-alarm fire at the Carus Chemical plant in LaSalle on Wednesday, CBS 2 Investigator Dorothy Tucker spent the afternoon looking through state and environmental records for the company's history.
One thing she discovered is the plant filed an application to expand recently.
Carus was issued a construction permit by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to build a new production plant and to add equipment to an existing facility in February last year.
We also learned that there was a safety complaint filed with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration last March about drums with chemicals inside the plant that were not properly labeled and stored.
In August, inspectors followed up and found no hazards - and the complaint was closed with no citations.
The only time the company was cited and fined was back in October 2014. At that time, it was forced to pay a $4,900 penalty for an unguarded area exposing workers to a 12-foot fall.
One more thing we learned the company has a short history of enforcement actions with the state since 2019, for violating air pollution standards, and for failing to have a plan to monitor and test equipment in the plant's Chemical Manufacturing Process Unit.
But the company was not fined for any of those violations after agreeing to make corrections.
