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Saturday, January 22, 2005

Env't - Some recent stories

Brownfields. The Louisville Courier Journal reported today on a decade-long effort in Harrison County to finance and clean up the site of meat-packing plant that operated from 1918 to 1980. The story provides a lot of information on the financial aspects of such a project.

Land application. The Gary Post-Tribune had a story yesterday on the "Blue Bag" waste issue in NW Indiana. Some quotes:

After a cease-and-desist order was issued last week, Nathan Sanko’s Back 2 Basics is back in business. Sanko has been hauling so-called screen waste from Chicago to his farm fields in Eagle Creek Township near Lowell since 2000. The waste is used on crops in lieu of commercial fertilizer.

The waste originates from the city of Chicago’s Blue Bag recycling program. When the recyclables, which also include yard waste and tree clippings, are sorted and sent through a rotating sieve, the portions that make their way through the sieve screens are called screen waste.

Concerns arose with exactly what kind of garbage is in the screen waste Sanko uses. Ned Kovachevich, executive director of the Lake County Plan Commission, issued Sanko a cease-and-desist order last week after questions of proper zoning were raised. But the order has been lifted, and a judge will now decide whether the operation necessitates a special-use zoning change to Conditional Development District.

And here is a Chicago Tribune story from Thursday headlined "Blue bag dump site gets reprieve: Screened waste still sent to landfills."

Today the Munster (NW Indiana) Times has a story on this issue titled "Judge to decide waste dumping dispute."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 22, 2005 09:57 AM
Posted to Environment