By Dan Klepal
Enquirer staff writer

LOWER PRICE HILL - Any environmental hazards that might be in the smoldering ruins of a Queen City Barrel Co. warehouse won't be known until next week, when state and federal environmental officials walk through the 104-year-old building that stored 40,000 to 50,000 empty barrels.

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The term "empty" is a legal one. Most of the barrels aren't empty when they arrive at the Queen City Barrel building. By law, each barrel is permitted to contain up to one inch of residue. . Such residues range from hazardous chemicals to pharmaceuticals to lubricants and a wide array of industrial waste.

Queen City Barrel's business is to recycle dirty barrels to be reused.

The company receives them in the Lower Price Hill facility and stores them there, until shipping them off to Columbus or Louisville, where they are cleaned and sold for reuse, said Craig Feltner, company vice president.

The company has a long history of environmental violations with the Metropolitan Sewer District, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S EPA. Last year, the company settled dozens of violations with the Metropolitan Sewer District at a cost of more than $36,000.

In February, the company was fined more than $26,000 by the OEPA for air-pollution violations.

Dale Farmer, emergency response coordinator with the OEPA, said he hopes to walk through the building on Monday along with officials from the federal EPA. But that tour might occur later, depending on when firefighters say it is safe to enter the building.

"We have a big building that is a shell, full of whatever debris and sludge and whatever else is still in there," Farmer said.

"We have to go in, characterize what's there, how to clean it up and how to dispose of it.

"There's such a wide variety of chemicals in the waste out there, a few gallons of an unknown chemical could be very dangerous."

When asked what chemicals environmental watchdogs expect to find, Farmer said, "I don't know where to begin. There are thousands of possibilities, and probably some industrial wastes that are a mix of chemicals."

Air pollution was the more pressing concern Friday.

The Cincinnati Health Department found several primary chemicals carried in the smoke plume, but none were at levels that posed a threat to human health.

Those chemicals were:

• Acetone, a chemical found in nail-polish remover.

• Acetaldehyde, found in tobacco smoke and vehicle emissions.

• Methyl ethyl ketone, a chemical found in paints, glues and other coatings.

Cincinnati Health Commissioner Malcolm Adcock said the chemicals in the air weren't dangerous because they were at relatively low levels.

City officials used computer modeling to calculate wind direction and topography of the neighborhood before deploying city workers with hand-held monitors that check the level of chemicals in the air.

"The levels of those chemicals in the smoke plume were certainly lower than people would expect if they were stripping a cabinet or painting their fingernails," Adcock said.

"But there's no question that someone breathing in the smoke could experience some eye or throat irritation because of the combination of everything - the smoke, soot and chemicals."

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E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com