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Thursday, February 17, 2005

Environment - Northwest Indiana redevelopment issues

Two stories today from Munster (NW Indiana) Times show the impact of decisions made in Indianapolis on that area's redevelopment potential.

"Mitchell power plant deal open to hearing" is a story by Keith Benman that reports:

The City of Gary will get to plead its case for taking possession of the Dean H. Mitchell Generating Station at a hearing today before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

The commission will be hearing about a November deal between the city and Northern Indiana Public Service Co. to put the mothballed power plant in city hands. The hand-off will only take place if the city can come up with the money to take the 59-year-old power plant down.

Gary Mayor Scott King wants to raze the plant for expansion of an airport runway as well as future development.

The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission must approve the deal, because it regulates all NIPSCO activities which might affect power prices for customers.

A second story reports:
Lt. Governor Becky Skillman announced the approval of a $50,000 Innovations grant to Highland's Multiserv Corp., Purdue University and the Indiana Department of Transportation.

The grant, administered through the Indiana Recycling and Energy Development Board will be used to test and determine how steel slag from Indiana's steel mills can be reused.

"Currently there is 400,000 tons of steel slag in Lake County," Skillman said. "We need to find ways to recycle it. We hope that, through the collaborative efforts of Purdue, Multiserv and INDOT, we might turn this waste into new materials."

Earlier ILB entries related to the above stories include:

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 17, 2005 10:19 AM
Posted to Environment