Muncie meeting on steel-dust recycling facility postponed
MUNCIE, Ind. (WISH) — A meeting set for next week on a controversial proposal for a steel-dust recycling facility is being postponed, a spokesman for the developer said Monday.
A community forum had been set for Aug. 20 — with no time or place announced — to hear concerns and take questions. There was no immediate word on when the meeting might be rescheduled.
The postponement was made to answer questions from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and city leaders, a Waelz Sustainable Products spokesman said.
Hundreds of Muncie residents fighting the proposed facility showed up for an Aug. 5 City Council meeting. News 8 had the only TV camera inside the meeting where hundreds of concerned people were turned away. Residents are concerned with mercury contamination in the air and other toxic elements that the proposal from Waelz Sustainable Products could bring.
Environmental Management officials with the Office of Air Quality are reviewing a permit for the Waelz Sustainable Products. The permit was sought in April.
On Aug. 5, the council voted to reconsider an ordinance approved in July to advance the facility proposal. The July vote authorized issuing up to $15.6 million in economic development tax increment revenue bonds. The City Council has not announced a time, day or place for a committee meeting to reconsider the proposal.
The plant is slated to go on the site of the former Borg Warner plant on Kilgore Avenue.
Waelz has previously said in a statement that the facility “will not put at risk public health, our groundwater or air quality” and will “create good paying jobs in Muncie.”