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Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Environment - Several recent stories

Infectious medical waste - The Gary Post-Tribune has a story today reporting that the Lake county solid waste district will have a public hearing Aug. 18 on whether Lake County need a plant that processes infectious waste. Some quotes:

The district’s board wants to decide whether there’s a need for Midwest Medical Solutions to operate a medical waste sterilizing plant in Gary * * *

Midwest Medical co-owner Russ Karlins said the plant began operating in January after getting an Indiana Department of Environmental Management permit last year.

He contended that the Lake County Solid Waste Management District does not have authority to decide whether Lake County needs his medical waste processing plant, which has customers well beyond the county’s borders.

“It’s very clear that’s a state power and not the district’s,” Karlins said of the “needs” decision.

However, a Lake County judge ruled in June that IDEM’s permit for Midwest Medical was improper because the solid waste district hadn’t decided on its need.

IDEM and Midwest Medical are appealing that decision.

Midwest Medical’s is the only commercially operated medical waste sterilizer in Indiana, Karlins said. Several hospitals have smaller ones, but they can take only their own waste.

Sterilized medical waste can be deposited in any landfill; otherwise, it must be taken to special landfills.

Power plant ash - "Residents fight use of power plant ash near water" is the headline to this report today in the Evansville Courier& Press. Some quotes:
Environmentalists and some area residents are appealing a state permit that would allow the owner of Rockport River Terminal in Spencer County to use power plant ash as construction fill near the town water supply.

After a yearlong process, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources approved the business' permit in April. However, it is being appealed by the groups Save Our Rivers and Save Our Land & Environment and several area residents. * * *

A major source of groundwater stretches beneath the site along the Ohio River, providing a water source for the Indiana towns of Rockport and Grandview. The town of Rockport serves nearly 1,200 water customers, according to the town utility office. That concerns Save Our Rivers' Don Mottley. "There are too many people who depend on this aquifer. We don't need another Pines here in Southwest Indiana," Mottley said.

The Northwest Indiana town of Pines was declared a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site in 2000 after a plume of groundwater contamination was discovered. The pollution was traced to power plant fly ash, which was disposed of in a landfill near the town.

"That was in a landfill with liners and monitors," Mottley said. "They are not proposing any monitoring here."

Fly ash - A story yesterday in Recycling Today reported:
A newly formed company, Midwest Celcon Products LLC, has taken the first step in building an aerated autoclaved concrete facility in Sullivan, Ind. According to published reports the company is looking to spend around $15 million to build the project, roughly 30 miles from Terre Haute, Ind.

When operational the project will use around 50,000 tons of recycled fly ash from Hoosier Energy’s Merom generating station.

If built, the project would be the first of its kind in the United States, although this type of operation is more common in Europe. A spokeswoman for the Sullivan County Redevelopment Commission, said that the end product has a number of excellent features, including soundproofing, insulation and the lightweight nature of the product.

While the company has taken the first step in building the project, it will be working on the financing part of the project. It is estimated that the project could be complete within the next 18-24 months.

Lake Michigan beach rights - The Chicago Tribune writes today that Michigan had recently "guaranteed the right to stroll along all Great Lakes beaches in that state."

But even though Illinois environmental groups believe the law is the same here, they don't expect a court ruling to clarify that point soon. Confusion remains over exactly where private property lines end and the public's begin, and several fences on the North Shore reinforce the point.

"Part of the reason it hasn't happened in Illinois is that virtually the entire lakefront of Chicago is open to the public," said Shannon Fisk, staff attorney for the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago. "And the North Shore has its share of beaches." * * *

The [Michigan] ruling solidified the "public trust doctrine," said Keith Schneider, deputy director and founder of the Michigan Land Use Institute.

"This case showed that the public trust doctrine is the law of the land, that there are certain resources on Earth held in common by all people--the sea, the air and the shoreline," he said.

There has not been a major ruling on the public trust doctrine in Illinois since 1990, when a dispute over Loyola University's attempt to build into Lake Michigan went to court and U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen ruled that the lake bottom was part of the "public trust."

A case similar to the one in Michigan "just hasn't come up," said Cameron Davis, executive director of the Alliance for the Great Lakes in Chicago, who was involved in the Loyola case. "I was surprised the Michigan case was a case at all. Most of this is pretty settled [legal] stuff right now."

But north of Chicago, where public beaches intermingle with palatial homes and at least one private club's beach on Lake Michigan, it is clearly unsettled.

Davis and Fisk believe that in Illinois the high water mark is the point at which the public access ends, not the wet sand.

However, Doug Gaynor, Evanston's director of parks, forestry and recreation, said that after private homeowners asked last year whether people they found on their beaches were trespassing, the city researched the issue.

"The interpretation we've been going on is you have to keep your feet in the water," Gaynor said. "If someone wants to challenge us, OK, we'll deal with it."

At the north end of Evanston, Northwestern University has a private beach, open only to students, faculty, staff and members of its athletic complex.

Though there is a small slice of city land next to it that could provide access to the university's beach under the "high water mark" standard, Alan Cubbage, a university spokesman, said there haven't been any disputes over the years.

"It has not been an issue," he said. "Sometimes we have to kick [NU] students off the beach [after regulated hours], but that's usually it."

For more on the Michigan decision, see this 7/31/05 ILB entry.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 9, 2005 02:06 PM
Posted to Environment