I have attended public hearings that attracted so few people they could have been held in a closet. I was at one the fire marshal closed down for over crowding. I even briefly visited a Boston public hearing on parking restrictions in a residential neighborhood at which thrown furniture became a form of interpersonal expression.
But most public hearings are pretty dull affairs. Twenty to thirty people usually show up, some of whom want to vent their anger at somebody, some of whom are convinced they can reason with the government, and some of whom are paid to be there - lawyers and lobbyists and such.
But at some point in all public hearings there comes the moment of realpolitik - when the government's representative, usually a perfectly decent human being and diligent public servant, has to inform the concerned citizens who expect to be heard that they've already lost the argument. They could be concerned about a planned radioactive landfill next to a day care center, or a facility to breed African Killer squirrels and it wouldn't matter. It is a standard rule of most "Open Government" systems that by the time the processes becomes open and the public is given a chance to be heard , the public hearings are legally, largely irrelevant.
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This was true of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management hearing held last Monday evening down at City Hall in Lafayette on Tate & Lyle's planned 50% expansion of their Sagamore "North" plant. They claim they grind and cook corn at the facility, but from the odors I personally have detected emanating from the plant I think they have been broiling wet lamas. But whatever it is they are reducing, it stinks. And I'm not talking cute stink, where everybody smiles and pats grandpa on the head. I'm talking drive the kids out of the yard, lock your windows and turn on your air conditioner stench.
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IDEM intends to require Tate and Lyle to install $7 million in "stench control" equipment, designed to reduce emissions from the plant by 15%, before they can turn on their new equipment. But isn't 50% bigger than 15%? - by 35%? Won't the plant actually be increasing emissions after the new emission control devices are installed? It's the kind of question that might have been asked at the hearing, and if it had been I'm sure Mr. Paul Dubenetzky, the IDEM guy in charge of permits who ran the hearing, would have been happy to answer it. But it wasn't asked perhaps because - what difference would it have made? As Mr. Dubenetzky pointed out, "...I don't have a lot of discretion....People have to understand what my limitations are." His limitations are the laws as written by Indianapolis. According to Mr. Dubenetzky nothing can now stop the IDEM permit from being issued unless Tate & Lyle is proven to have done something illegal. And as Dr. William Crammer pointed out, none of the concerned citizens has the resources to do any air sampling, which would be required to prove anything.
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Dr. Crammer is a professor in Biological Science at Purdue. He told Mr. Dubenetzky, "When you smell things that make you sick, they're generally not good for you." True, but that hardly constitutes legal evidence. Dr. Crammer also pointed out that one of the emissions currently coming from the plant - Sulfur Dioxide - kills mice in the laboratory at levels of about 600 parts per million. But how many parts per million per breath are there in 13.1 million tons per year, which is how much T&L claims they will be cutting SO2 emissions.
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I could point out the insanity of forcing people to prove they are breathing bad air, rather than forcing Tate & Lyle to first prove they aren't making bad air, but I don't want to over simplify this complicated issue. Mr. Dubenetzky said IDEM has been in complex negotiations with Tate & Lyle over this permit for almost a year. But that just makes the 30 days between public notice of the permit application and the end of the public comment period on the application look pretty darn short - especially if the public comments aren't going to have much impact.
Late in the meeting one lady suggested the city of Lafayette should hold its own hearing on Tate & Lyle expansion, just to let people blow off some steam. And why not? The plant gets to do it everyday, why shouldn't we?
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