RACINE - An award-winning local plating firm's owners are fuming at a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fine they say is akin to extortion.

The EPA says the $30,000 fine was necessary to make sure companies such as Wisconsin Plating Works of Racine follow environmental regulations.

The EPA reported Wednesday that Wisconsin Plating had agreed to the fine for alleged Clean Air Act violations at the company's facility at 620 Stannard St.

Wisconsin Plating, which employs 45 people, does coating of metal products and also has an operation at 931 Carroll St.

Wednesday, company President Bob Toeppe was furious about the fine for what he called a "paperwork violation."

"There was no (chemical) release to the environment," he said. "It was ridiculous. It was like extortion."

"There was no environmental harm done. Absolutely none," said his brother Jeff Toeppe, company vice president.

"I feel like I've been kicked in the teeth. It's got everyone baffled."

The EPA said the agreement and fine resolve a case involving regulations meant to control hazardous air pollutant emissions from solvent cleaning machines.

Jeff Toeppe explained that Wisconsin Plating must do weekly temperature checks on a vapor degreaser that uses a hazardous substance, trichloroethylene. "But we don't run the vapor degreaser every week."

Temperature checks were set up to be done every Monday morning, he said. But six times in the first half of 2007, when the degreaser was not running, a technician forgot to take a temperature recording.

Self-reported

The company divulged the reporting gaps in a semiannual report to the EPA, which initially wanted to fine the owners about $73,000.

George Czerniak, chief of the EPA's air enforcement branch at its regional office in Chicago, said that amount was determined by a formula. He defended the negotiated $30,000 fine and said fines promote compliance.

"Monitoring and reporting helps us catch people who are outliers," Czerniak said. "Ninety to 95 percent of companies comply, and this company is an outlier."

The Toeppes, third-generation owners, would reject that description. They tout their environmental record and awards they've won as owners.

"The problem is the fine numbers (EPA officials) started with," said their lawyer, Christopher Nowotarski of Chicago. "What message are you sending to other people? In a paperwork situation, (the reaction could be) 'I'll just make up numbers and file a false report.'"

Jeff Toeppe and Czerniak both said there was no way the company could prove it never ran the degreaser on the missing weeks, but Toeppe said they presented other documentation showing the degreaser was working properly.

Toeppe said, "We proved our case that no environmental harm was done. But they said, 'We don't care.'"

He and Nowotarski said an EPA attorney threatened to put out the message that Wisconsin Plating was a major polluter if it did not accept the $30,000 fine. Czerniak denied it.

Toeppe said they also offered an alternative to the fine: Converting to a much safer chemical degreaser. That would have cost more than $50,000 over four to five years.

"They said they were not interested," Toeppe said.

Czerniak said the brothers "never followed through with specifics on that," but Nowotarski said there was no point spending time and money if the EPA wasn't interested.

Nowotarski, also general counsel for the Chicago Metal Finishers Institute, said a $5,000 fine would have been more reasonable and still effectively send a message.

"The EPA has taken a harsher stance the last eight months," he said.