A Columbus chemical manufacturer behind the release of a toxic gas cloud on Monday, July 14, that led to a shelter-in-place order for people in Franklinton has a prior history of environmental violations, a Dispatch review shows.
GFS Chemicals, whose company offices are located at 851 McKinley Ave., has received 10 notices of violation from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency over the past decade, each listing multiple Ohio Administrative Code or Ohio Revised Code violations found during routine compliance inspections, according to the Ohio EPA’s eDocument Search.
Firefighters and police responded July 14 to a GFS Chemicals manufacturing building at 777 River St. next to Franklinton Cemetery after receiving reports of an odor across the area.
Columbus Division of Fire Battalion Chief Jeffrey Geitter said 911 callers were reporting a “foreign odor” in the area. Firefighters, including hazmat, responded and got to the scene about 2:20 p.m., he said.
“We responded and found a yellowish cloud,” Geitter said. “That cloud has dissipated over time. Since we’ve been here, there hasn’t been any further (release).”
GFS, whose company offices are at 851 McKinley Ave., also reported the incident, Geitter said. GFS chemicals workers were trying to neutralize an acidic solution, a normal process for the company, when something happened and it became a corrosive gas, Geitter said.
Geitter said the Division of Fire then issued shelter-in-place instructions for residents living in the area north of Dublin Road, south of West Broad Street, State Route 315 to the east, and west of Hartford Street due to the hazmat situation.
The shelter-in-place directive was removed after Columbus fire officials determined there was no longer any threat, Geitter said. As of late afternoon, however, Geitter said fire officials were still unable to say what kind of gas leaked out of the facility.
In a follow-up conversation on July 15, Geitter told a reporter that fire officials still had not received confirmation on what chemicals were released into the neighboring community.
No injuries or hospitalizations had been reported among workers or anyone else, he said.
When reached by The Dispatch, Aron Bacza, quality and regulatory manager for GFS Chemicals, said the company was investigating the matter, but declined to comment further.
GFS Chemicals had hazardous wastewater incident this year
GFS most recently received a notice from the Ohio EPA dated June 4, 2025, with six listed violations from two incidents, one each in April and May, involving transportation and attempts to dispose of more than 1,000 gallons of processed wastewater from its facility that turned out to be hazardous.
On April 11, 2024, Ohio EPA received notification from Reworld Tron Corp. that they had received a shipment of unmanifested hazardous waste from GFS. Three totes (825 gallons) were shipped to Reworld and sampled. Results showed that the three totes of “process wastewater” contained hazardous waste, according to an EPA report.
GFS was notified, and the three totes were transported to Reworld Tron Corp., a permitted treatment, storage and disposal (TSD) company with a facility in Avon, Lorain County. On May 6, the Ohio EPA reached out to GFS to discuss the unmanifested hazardous waste shipment, according to the report.
A week later, on May 13, Reworld Tron submitted another unmanifested waste report about a shipment of six totes of “process wastewater,” two of which were determined to be hazardous waste by Reworld. GFS had those two totes (550 gallons) returned to their facility, where they tested them for flashpoint.
A flash point test involves heating a sample of a liquid or semi-solid in a controlled environment to determine the lowest temperature at which it gives off enough vapor when an ignition source or flame is applied, forming a flammable mixture. When a brief flame flash occurs, the temperature at which that happens is the flash point.
One of the two totes sent back to GFS was verified by GFS to be hazardous waste, according to the Ohio EPA. During GFS’s internal investigation, the company determined that its flash point sampling equipment was not performing correctly. The company began using a different test method to prevent further issues and was in the process of reevaluating those two totes, the Ohio EPA said.
The Ohio EPA, in a letter dated June 4, advised GFS that the company had violated six Ohio laws or codes, including failure to properly determine whether a generated waste was hazardous and improper transportation of hazardous waste.
In the letter, Ohio EPA said no further action for these six violations was required, but that “due to the nature of this violation,” GFS was referred to EPA’s central office for “evaluation of escalated enforcement.”
No “resolution of violation” or “return to compliance” documents could be found for GFS from the Ohio EPA since June 4.
Reporter Shahid Meighan can be reached at smeighan@dispatch.com, at ShahidMeighan on X, and at shahidthereporter.dispatch.com on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: GFS Chemicals, which released gas cloud in Franklinton, has had past Ohio EPA violations
Reporting by Shahid Meighan, Jordan Laird and Emma Wozniak, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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