PETERSBURG, Ill. (Aug. 17) — The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has turned over to the Illinois Attorney General´s office the case of a Petersburg tire recycler who allegedly is illegally and improperly storing scrap tires on his property.
The Attorney General will take action to stop Lonnie Wayne Sinclair of Lon´s Tire Recyclers from accumulating tires and storing tires and to oversee the removal of thousands of tires from his current business site, the IEPA said.
A recent inspection showed many of the tires at Lon´s Tire Recyclers — which is located near a school, a nursing home and several houses — contained water and larvae from disease-carrying mosquitoes, according to an IEPA press release.
The agency treated those tires with a larvicide designed specifically for tires, it said.
To date the IEPA has not traced any cases of West Nile Virus, dengue fever or other mosquito-related disease to Lon´s Tire Recyclers, an IEPA spokeswoman said.
Although Sinclair is registered with the state to transport scrap tires commercially, he is not registered to store tires either on his current property or on another site near Petersburg for which he was cited by the state for storage violations in March 2005, the agency said. Lon´s Tire Recyclers could not be reached for comment.