CROWN POINT | Mayor David Uran is noncommittal about the possibility of the county seat as a location for the future home of a Northwest Indiana garbage-to-ethanol plant.
Uran said he had the opportunity to see firsthand what the Lake County Solid Waste Management District would be voting on, and as a voting member, he wanted to take the opportunity to do so.
Uran called the plant "impressive" and "odorless."
Members of the Lake County Solid Waste Management District, including Uran, voted Thursday in favor of a contract to have the county's municipal waste processed for bio-mass fuel by a Powers Energy One plant.
Uran traveled recently to Fort Smith, Ark., with Lake County Commissioner Gerry Scheub, D-Schererville, Hobart Mayor Brian Snedecor and Chris Hernandez, president of the Northwest Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council, to visit Powers Energy One, a garbage-to-ethanol plant near the campus of the University of Arkansas.
Snedecor has said previously the company has talked to him about possibly locating in Hobart, and Scheub said Friday he had not heard Uran mention Crown Point as a possible site. Scheub mentioned Merrillville, Hobart, Lowell, Schneider and some brownfields as possible sites.
Members of the city's Redevelopment Commission and City Councilmen Bob Corbin and Mark Schweitzer said they have not had conversations with the mayor regarding an ethanol plant in Crown Point.
Cliff Duggan, an attorney for the district, said he sent out an invitation to each of the district's members to attend the trip to Arkansas and those who responded they could attend, did so. He said as far as he knows a location for the plant hasn't been determined yet.
Last week Hernandez said the company made a commitment to use area unions for labor. He said there could be between 65 and 170 full-time permanent positions and about 300 construction jobs while the plant is built.
The proposed plant has drawn criticism from some environmental groups who dislike Powers' high-heat gasification process to combust solid waste into an organic gas that is fermented into ethanol. They claim the process is untested and possibly hazardous.
