Skip to main content

Matthiessen and Hegeler Zinc Company

LaSalle, Illinois
LaSalle County

The Matthiessen and Hegeler Zinc Company (Matthiessen Hegeler) is the site of a former zinc rolling mill and primary zinc smelter. The 160-acre property is located in LaSalle on the west side of the Little Vermilion River. The company began operations in 1858 and ceased operations in 1978 after declaring bankruptcy.

During the approximately 120 years of the company's existence, the facility produced slab zinc, sulfuric acid, and ammonium sulfate fertilizer.

These processes resulted in the emission of airborne particulate matter containing cadmium, lead, zinc, and other inorganic chemicals.

Additional manufacturing operations occurred in conjunction with the smelting process. A producer gas plant was operated on the site in the early years to manufacture fuel for the Hegeler furnace. Coal was mined on the property until 1937. During the 1950s, the company produced ammonium sulfate fertilizer. In 1961, the company stopped smelting zinc. The manufacture of sulfuric acid was discontinued in 1968, and from 1968 until closing in 1978, the facility only performed rolling operations.

In 1979, after declaring bankruptcy, the property was sold at auction. In 1993, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Illinois EPA) collected three sediment samples from the Little Vermilion River (seven on-site soil samples and 13 off-site soil samples) for a preliminary evaluation of possible effects of past operations and in preparation for scoring the site for possible inclusion on the National Priorities List (NPL).

In 1995, the Illinois EPA held a public meeting in LaSalle to discuss sample results. In June 2001, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and Illinois EPA proposed the site for the NPL. The proposal opened a public comment period. In September 2003, the U.S. EPA finalized the site on the NPL.

Contact

For more information, please contact the Illinois EPA Office of Community Relations. Additional documents not available on this webpage may be obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request or through IEPA Document Explorer.