Workers with the York Salvage Yard Fire Unified Command replace a pollution-catching boom along a Codorus Creek tributary in York, PA, on March 6, 2026, after significant rainfall. (Courtesy of the York County PA Office of Emergency Management)
A Pennsylvania scrap yard with a long history of environmental violations has been shut down by state regulators in the wake of a February fire that resulted in oily waste washing into a Susquehanna River tributary.
On March 17, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) ordered J&K Salvage, in York, PA, to stop accepting and processing waste and begin removing waste already at the site in Spring Garden township. The agency also asked a state court to jail the owner for 45 days and fine him more than $40,000 for failure to comply with a 2024 cleanup order.
“We will not tolerate flagrant disregard of the laws and regulations that exist to protect public health and Pennsylvania’s air, land and water,” said DEP Secretary Jessica Shirley.
Wearing protective gear, the York Salvage Yard Fire Unified Command assesses drums with unknown contents for potential hazards at a salvage yard in York, PA, on March 8, 2026. (Courtesy of the York County PA Office of Emergency Management)
The state’s action came on the heels of a March 13 request by the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association for a federal court injunction to shut down the scrap yard. The watershed group had sued in July 2025, accusing J&K of violating Pennsylvania’s Clean Streams law as well as federal clean water and hazardous waste laws.
The riverkeeper group said then that its sampling of discharge flowing from pipes into an unnamed tributary of Codorus Creek detected unauthorized pollution, including a variety of metals and toxic chemicals such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.”
J&K denied in federal court filings that it was discharging illegal pollutants into the stream or violating its permit.
The lawsuit was pending when a blaze tore through the scrap yard on Feb. 25. Fluids from the facility and water used to extinguish the fire ran into the tributary and then into Codorus Creek, where an oily sheen could be seen far downstream.
Workers with the York Salvage Yard Fire Unified Command use underflow dams, boom and skimming techniques to remove oil and waste from a Codorus Creek tributary in York, PA, on March 3, 2026. (Courtesy of the York County PA Office of Emergency Management)
Local, state and federal agencies responded, placing booms to limit the sheen’s spread and suctioning waste from the water. By mid-March, more than 4,500 gallons of oily water had been recovered from the tributary, according to Amanda Hancher, spokesperson for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 3 office in Philadelphia.
After visiting the scrap yard on March 6, Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Ted Evgeniadis contended that the site lacked any meaningful stormwater pollution controls and that pollution of the stream continued. On that basis, his group petitioned the U.S. District Court in Harrisburg for a preliminary injunction to shut the facility down.
“Our state and federal agencies appear to be reluctant to intervene and close the site,” the riverkeeper group said on its Facebook page. “Meanwhile, the company continues to operate as if the explosion and fire never occurred. We demand that the site come into compliance before operations continue at the J&K Salvage site.”
The scrap yard’s lawyer did not return an email from the Bay Journal seeking comment.
DEP’s March 17 order to close the scrapyard recounted a series of enforcement actions taken against J&K beginning in 2015, culminating in a court order in 2021 requiring the company to stop processing and remove all yard and woody waste, roof shingles, and construction and demolition debris. In 2024, the court found the company in contempt of its earlier order and demanded corrective action. State inspectors then found that the facility still had not complied.
DEP also alleged that J&K had violated its wastewater discharge permit by failing to file required monitoring reports, not taking required samples and exceeding its pollution limits. Its discharge permit expired at the end of November 2024 after it missed a deadline to request a renewal. The company has continued to operate on the expired permit while waiting for DEP to issue a new one.
Aerial view of J&K Salvage in York, PA from 2025, before a devastating fire in February 2025. On March 17, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection ordered the company stop accepting and processing waste and begin removing waste already at the site. (Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper)
In a separate filing, the state agency asked the Commonwealth Court to impose sanctions on J&K and its owner for failing to comply with the 2024 court order requiring it to address violations at the site. DEP asked the court to jail the owner for 45 days and to fine the company $40,750 plus additional penalties of $250 per day for continued failure to act.
After DEP issued its shutdown order, the riverkeeper said it welcomed the agency’s action but still believed a federal injunction was needed.
Though DEP supported the riverkeeper’s motion, U.S. District Court Judge Karoline Mehalchick denied it March 26, saying the state’s action made the riverkeeper’s request moot. She said the riverkeeper could renew its motion for an injunction if at any point it believed the company was not complying with the state’s order.
The Riverkeeper group said it was reviewing whether to renew its request. On the same day of the federal ruling DEP filed a petition with the Commonwealth Court saying J&K had not ceased operations, in violation of the state’s order.
State inspectors found trucks still coming and going and the site still accepting waste when they visited on March 23, DEP said in a petition asking the court to enforce its March 17 order.