« Ind. Law - IU-Indianapolis Law reportedly tumbles in U.S.News rankings | Main | Courts - Illinois Chief Justice looks at changing how judges are chosen »
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Environment - Several items today
Doug Masson's Blog today has an interesting item on agricultural nuisance actions, as in Senate Bill 267. His conclusion:
So, presumably under the new law, converting from a small, locally owned, odor-free agricultural operation in business between 8 and 5 to a huge operation owned by an out of state corporation belching out noxious odors 24 hours per day would not consitute a "significant change". Nice. Passed 55-40.The Gary Post-Tribune reports:
EAST CHICAGO — The first above-ground work for a massive dredging project is to begin soon. But a critic contends the work is premature. An updated environmental study of the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal dredging project and its effect on public health hasn’t been completed yet, Hammond resident Betty Balanoff said.“I don’t see any point in spending money to build something until you know exactly what you’re dealing with,” she said.
An official for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is planning the dredging project, said Dyer Construction Co. is expected to start building the containment walls for the project’s confined disposal facility in a couple of weeks. The 30-foot-high disposal facility, which will hold the dredged material, will be built on the former site of the ECI refinery, west of Indianapolis Boulevard. Roy Deda, deputy administrator for project management at the Army Corps office in Chicago, said the first construction phase for the disposal facility’s wall is to be completed this year. * * *
The dredging itself won’t start before summer 2007, Deda said. The project is to take about 4.6 million cubic yards of industry-contaminated mud out of the harbor and ship canal. Critics contend that the effect of pollution getting into the air from the dredged mud hasn’t been studied adequately.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is working on an a new environmental assessment, and a public health expert from the University of Illinois-Chicago is to report on the confined disposal facility’s health effects.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 29, 2005 12:22 PM
Posted to Environment