CHICAGO - The sweet smell of chocolate wafting through downtown Chicago isn't fattening, but it could be bad for you anyway.
Considered by many to be an olfactory delight, the Blommer Chocolate Co. factory is being accused of releasing too much choco-pollution while grinding roasted cacao beans for 10-pound candy bars and other treats.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent an inspector to check out the factory after a neighbor complained about the aroma of burnt chocolate. The unidentified person didn't care for the powder-filled plume churning out of a roof duct, either.
Based on what the inspector saw during two mornings in early September, the EPA cited Blommer on Thursday for violating limits on opacity, or the amount of light blocked by the factory's grinder dust.
Environmental regulators measure opacity to help determine if factories are releasing too much pollution that can trigger asthma attacks and harm people suffering from heart and lung diseases - whether those tiny particles are soot from a power plant or cocoa dust from a candy grinder.
The EPA rarely cites companies just for violating the limits. The agency's decision to take action against Blommer comes amid repeated complaints that the agency has failed to address opacity violations at coal-fired power plants in the Chicago area.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office has documented more than 7,600 violations since 1999 at six coal plants owned by Midwest Generation, including two in Chicago and three in the suburbs.
Several environmental groups also mentioned the power company's chronic opacity problems when objecting to new operating permits for the aging coal plants. Neither state nor federal environmental regulators have cited the plants for opacity violations.
"Everyone has to comply with the same rules, but why is it that time after time these coal plants get a free pass?" said Bruce Nilles, a Midwest representative of the Sierra Club.
Federal and state environmental regulators have said the power plant violations were too brief and didn't happen often enough to merit enforcement. A spokesman for the U.S. EPA declined to comment when asked why the chocolate plant was cited but not the power plants.
The case against Blommer involves two mornings when a federal inspector watched the plume of cocoa dust. The plant violated the opacity limits for 16 minutes one day and 10 minutes the next, according to the EPA's three-page complaint.
The family-owned company has been making chocolate for the wholesale market since 1939. Machines run around the clock to produce cocoa powder and milk and dark chocolate, and depending on the weather the smell of ground beans spreads through much of the area.
In a prepared statement, Blommer acknowledged problems with the factory's chocolate-laden exhaust. The company says it is installing new filtering equipment designed to prevent the opacity violations from recurring.
"The company is committed to continuing its long tradition of manufacturing in a responsible manner in the city of Chicago," said Peter W. Blommer, the company's chief operating officer.
A spokeswoman for the Illinois EPA said the agency had no past or pending problems with the chocolate factory.
Some of the plant's neighbors, meanwhile, weren't fazed by the prospect that the sweet-smelling pollution might be harmful.
At City Pool Hall, workers from the factory across the street regularly belly up to the bar smelling as if they had been dipped in cocoa powder, said manager LeAnne Vancil.
"It's better than the exhaust you'd smell in Gary (Ind.)," she said.
Chris Chapman, who works just blocks from the factory at A & B Machine Works, said there actually are two distinct odors, one good and the other not so much.
"Sometimes it smells good and sometimes it smells like burnt chocolate," he said.
Still, he's not complaining. His own shop features an odor of burnt oil and old grease. And even the burnt chocolate aroma is a welcome improvement on the smell that sometimes blows his way from garbage bins used by a dog training facility across the street.
The Mandolinis have lived near the chocolate factory for 27 years. "They're great neighbors and I love the smell," said Chris Mandolini, an insurance agent who works out of his home.
The family's garden is mulched with the factory's cocoa grounds, and the company has donated sacks for gunnysack races, Mandolini said.
The fact that someone complained about Blommer's odor reveals the downside of more residents moving into an area with a long industrial history, he said.
"They move into a neighborhood because they like the area, but in no time they begin complaining and wanting everyone to adapt to them," he said, assuming it was a new resident who filed the complaint. "This is the sad part about this world we live in."
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