Former Mishawaka mayor: Baycote has "checkered history"

MISHAWAKA – The EPA remains on the scene this weekend in the 1300 block of Industrial Drive with multiple air quality monitoring stations set up all around the area surrounding the old Baycote site where the chemical leak occurred Friday night.

EPA spokesman on site, Paul Atkociunas, says the building had a large amount of hazardous chemicals inside, including 4% cyanide solid that mixed with another material.  Workers didn't realize such a reaction would occur at the time the mixing occurred.  Atkociunas calls it "an unfortunate accident."

The most problematic chemical at the heart of the situation Friday was hydrogen cyanide solid mixed in a 3'x3'x3' box.  The EPA says about 1,000 pounds of chemicals were in the box. 

Originally the timetable for the EPA to clean up the site started around Memorial Day of this year and called for the project to be complete in November.  Friday's fire and chemical leak likely will not change that timeline significantly.

"Our number one goal is to make sure it's taken care of safely and efficiently and that we follow procedures.  I don't want to go full bore into something and push too hard to get it done.  I don't intend to leave until the threat is eliminated to the public," says Atkociunas.

Former Mishawaka mayor, Jeff Rea, says the site has a "long and checkered history" in Mishawaka.

"It was always on our dirty dozen list," Rea said.

Rea said that originally the company was doing well when it located in Mishawaka and was even granted tax abatements, but then the company changed hands about 7 to 8 years ago.  The current owner, who lives in Illinois, essentially just walked away according to Rea.  What was left behind was a mountain of chemicals and hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid back taxes owed to St. Joseph County.

"Basically they just walked away, abandoned the property and left a burden for the community to deal with," Rea explained. 

Rea says that he was in contact with the Illinois owner earlier this year when a potential buyer for the old Baycote site expressed interest in purchasing the building.  But Rea says so many problems were looming on the property, the buyer ended up walking away. 

A former worker at the plant tells WSBT-TV that when the plant was still open, the cyanide was used to help plate metal auto parts to ultimately help make them thicker and stronger.  He says at one point the company did a lot of work for AM General.  That same worker also says he was so concerned about what had been left behind in the building after Baycote closed, that he went to his Mishawaka councilman to complain.