Posted: 3/15/05
Tire burning proposal withdrawn
Plans for the Heartland Tire Burning facility in Preston have apparently been scrapped.
Developer Robert Maust made that announcement in a written statement on March 7 to the city council in Preston, Maustís home town and the site for the proposed plant.
ìWe donít like to admit failure, but we have succumbed to mob rule,î Maust wrote. ìWe believe itís probably better that we take our project to an area where the investment and the jobs will be welcome.î
Plans for building the plant received a setback on January 25 when the Minnesota Pollution Control Agencyís Citizensí Board voted to require an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the plant. The Citizensí Board was in the process of determining the scope of the EIS when Maust made his announcement.
The EIS could have cost $100,000 and taken a year or more to prepare, according to some estimates. Maust did not feel an EIS was needed.
Local reaction was generally opposed to the plant idea in the first place, due to things like concerns from possible windborn pollution from the burning of an estimated 200,000 tires a week. Houston County commissioners also passed a resolution asking that an EIS be done,
Michael Fields of Caledonia, who opposed the construction of the plant, said on March 8 that he was relieved about the outcome for several reasons. The plant would have provided a barely livable wage to a handful of people at the expense of physical and mental health of local people, he felt.
ìWho would want to move to Caledonia knowing that tons of toxins would be blowing across our homes every year?î Fields said.
He also took offense with Maustís use of the term ìmob ruleî for the local people who opposed the plan. He said that a wide range of people, from doctors and politicians to farmers and students. ìThey conducted themselves in a dignified manner, always followed all of the laws,î Fields said. ìTo refer to them as a mob was an unwarranted slap to groups of concerned citizens.
Caledonia Argus
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