A Corydon (IN) industrial plant may have illegally released into the air tens of thousands of pounds of a toxic chemical associated with nervous-system damage and cancer each year between 1998 and 2003, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency charged yesterday.

Daramic Inc., which makes thin plastic membranes that allow car batteries to work and recharge, employs about 110 people in Harrison County.

The air pollution permit for the plant calls for allowing only 5 percent of its trichloroethylene to escape, but the EPA said 40 percent to 91 percent got away during those years. The allegations are contained in a finding-of-violation document from the agency's Chicago office.

As recently as 2002, the company led the nation in industrial emissions of the chemical with nearly 1.1 million pounds, the vast majority of it from leaks, according to the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory. That is five times more than the second-ranked company.

The company has 30 days to respond to the allegations, which EPA officials described as preliminary. The agency could fine the company as much as $27,500 to $32,500 a day during the six-year period, said William Omohundro, an EPA spokesman.