Local emissions of sooty sulfur dioxide should be reduced over the next 2 1/2 years as the Marsulex Inc. facility in Oregon installs better equipment to process its chemicals.

That's according to terms of an agreement the federal government announced Monday. Marsulex and two Chemtrade companies that make sulfuric acid were named in that deal, which settled outstanding violations cited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Marsulex plant in Oregon is at 1400 Otter Creek Rd. In addition to the planned improvements there, Marsulex will install a new scrubber at Chemtrade's sulfuric acid plant in Cairo, Ohio, to meet lower sulfur dioxide limits, the agencies said.

The Ohio improvements are required by July, 2011. All others are to be done by January, 2013.

The deal will cost Marsulex and Chemtrade a combined $12 million for air pollution controls to eliminate more than 3,000 tons of emissions annually from six production plants in Ohio, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, officials said.

That's more than half of what those six plants collectively emit, according to the regulators.

The three companies also have agreed to pay a total of $700,000 in fines for violating the federal Clean Air Act, the federal EPA and Justice Department statement said.

The plants operated by Marsulex and Chemtrade produce sulfuric acid by burning sulfur or used sulfuric acid, thereby creating sulfur dioxide, which poses a danger to children, the elderly, and people with heart and lung conditions, according to government regulators, officials said.

Sulfuric acid is commonly used in processing ore, making fertilizer, refining oil, treating wastewater, and synthesizing chemicals, officials said.

Dina Pierce, Ohio EPA spokesman, said money that Ohio gets from the settlement will be used to plant trees and further the state EPA's program for retrofitting diesel school buses.

First Published January 14, 2009, 12:05 p.m.