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Columbus, Ohio — Moms Clean Air Force, Buckeye Environmental Network, and partners sent a 20-page public comment letter to the Ohio EPA on October 17, 2025, calling on the agency to protect children and their families from the toxic chemicals released by Nutrien PCS Nitrogen (also known as “Nutrien Lima”) in their renewal of the facility’s air pollution permit. The letter also called for protections from five other petrochemical polluters sharing the same location in the Lima Ohio petrochemical complex: Ineos USA, Ineos Nitriles, Premcor-Husky-Cenovus Lima Refinery, Fort Amanda Specialties, and International Specialty Products. The Ohio EPA responded to the comments on January 16, 2026, rejecting all the detailed recommendations in the letter and choosing to ignore the discrepancies found in the proposed permits.
“Rather than take this opportunity to protect the health of local communities, the Ohio EPA chose to dig in its heels, burrowing itself in bureaucratic justifications instead of considering ways to reduce the toxic air pollution and upgrade the quality of life for the people of Lima and surrounding communities,” says Cynthia Palmer, Moms Clean Air Force’s senior petrochemical analyst. “We are deeply disappointed with the response of the Ohio EPA. This is a missed opportunity to clean the air for Ohio communities and to promote transparency and accountability.”
“We are especially concerned about the majority Black and low-income neighborhoods located downwind of the ammonia plant that are disproportionately exposed to concentrated amounts of toxic air pollution from the site,” says Cat Adams, petrochemical organizer at Buckeye Environmental Network. “Within these neighborhoods, children are particularly vulnerable to health harms. Students attending Unity Elementary School, Freedom Elementary School, Liberty Elementary School, Liberty Arts Magnet School, and South Science Technology and Magnet School, which are less than 1.5 miles away from the facility, are all forced to breathe polluted air.”
The groups are calling for stronger pollution control requirements and for real-time, enforceable fenceline monitoring systems that inform the public and that require root-cause analysis and corrective action when pollution limits are exceeded. They urge the Ohio EPA to require emissions testing rather than rely on theoretical emissions models that undercount the harm. In addition, they urge the agency to consider the cumulative and aggregate risks to workers and residents from this heavily polluting constellation of adjacent facilities.
BACKGROUND
Facilities in the Lima Ohio petrochemical complex are polluting surrounding communities with dangerous levels of formaldehyde, benzene, heavy metals (such as cobalt, nickel, hexavalent chromium, mercury), ultra-fine particulates, and other pollutants. The neighborhood is in the 99th percentile for cancer risk from petrochemical facilities compared to all other census blocks in the nation. It’s also in the 99th percentile for other health harms including developmental, reproductive, and respiratory illnesses. In other words, in only 1 percent of communities is the air more toxic than in Lima, Ohio.
Last year, Nutrien Lima applied for permission to continue polluting surrounding communities with formaldehyde, benzene, hexavalent chromium, nitrogen oxides, n-hexane, methanol and other dangerous chemicals, including millions of pounds of ammonia (which reacts with other air pollutants to create ultra-fine particulate matter that penetrates deep into the lungs and are linked to birth defects, lung cancer, dementia, and other illnesses).
Technical and legal staff and experienced permitting specialists from Moms Clean Air Force, Buckeye Environment Network, and other partners reviewed Ohio EPA’s draft “Title V” permit for the Nutrien PCS Lima facility and submitted 20 pages of detailed comments. The review identified numerous shortcomings and inconsistencies in the draft permit that put surrounding communities in harm’s way. The groups pointed out significant opportunities to reduce emissions.
The letter also underscored the lack of clarity, inaccurate methods used in calculating emissions limits, avoidance of actual emissions testing, dataset irregularities, contradictory language, and other problems. Because the wind in the region generally blows from the southwest, the toxic air pollution released by Nutrien disproportionately impacts the fenceline Black and low-income communities living to the northeast of this complex.
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency responded on January 16, 2026, rejecting the concerns detailed in the letter. The permit has been submitted to the US EPA for final approval.
Buckeye Environmental Network (BEN) is a statewide non-profit committed to helping grassroots organizations and local communities advocate for environmental justice in Ohio. Our staff works on key issues in our state, ranging from petrochemical pollution to oil and gas waste to public forests. For more information, go to https://benohio.org/ or follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram @buckeye_network.