April 18, 2013-by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor
In the last few months, economic development officials in southwest Indiana have courted two giant, billion plus fertilizer plants. One is proposed west of Evansville at the Southwind Maritime Center in Mt. Vernon and the other is proposed for Rockport about twenty five miles east of Evansville. The size of the plant that blew up on April 17 pales in comparison to the two proposed.
Both of these communities are among the most toxic polluted towns in America already according to the US EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory.
But that is only where this story begins.
In Mt. Vernon the proposal calls for the plant to be developed adjacent to one of the largest ethanol refineries in the nation. At Rockport, the proposal calls for the plant to be located adjacent to another proposal called Indiana Gasification, which is designed to convert coal to various explosive materials, primarily synthetic natural gas.
Had the much smaller plant in West, Texas been located so close to another time bomb like a huge ethanol plant or a syngas plant, who knows how much damage would occur?
It is apparent to anyone who cares about safety that it is not a good idea to locate such a plant immediately next to a facility that is already a giant explosion and fire hazard but that matters little to SW indiana economic development officials or their counterparts in Indiana’s Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) since already IDEM has issued a Draft Air and Construction permit for the Rockport plant which goes by the name-Ohio Valley Resources Limited Liability Corporation.
In fact, a public hearing is slated for that permit on May 15, in the little town of Rockport at South Spencer High School. IDEM always issues permits they get to the draft stage but still locals will have an opportunity to voice their concerns.
In the thirty-two years Valley Watch has watched these things, we do not recall a single permit that has been denied. On occasion IDEM will be forced by citizens to add new conditions to a permit but they do not deny them as long as applicants dot their “i”s and cross their “t”s.
The Mt. Vernon proposal has some issues of its own. Not only is it proposed to be built next to an explosive ethanol plant, it is also being proposed by a Pakistani company that has been implicated in the supply of explosive ammonium nitrate to the Afghani Taliban for use in the manufacture of Improvised Explosive Devices used against American troops in the war in Afghanistan.
Interestingly, an Indiana agency named the Indiana Finance Authority has ties to both these endeavors. The IFA signed a thirty year contract with Indiana Gasification to buy most of the production of that plant and in turn will force Hoosier consumers to purchase that gas at a significant premium over the price of natural gas to heat their homes.
In the Mt. Vernon case, IFA authorized $1.2 Billion in tax exempt bonds for the Fatima Corporation to use for capital expenditures to build their plant at the Southwind port.
In both case, there was no public involvement allowed in the drafting of either the bond issue or the contract, although the contract was later approved by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission which did allow for public input which is now the subject of an Supreme Court proceeding.
Valley Watch wil hold a press conference to discuss future actions it intends to take on April 18 and we will report on that on this web site.
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