MUNCIE — The federal government and Exide Technologies have rejected pleas from the mayor, environmental/health groups and three neighborhood associations to install $31 million in pollution-control equipment at the company's battery recycling facility.
Physician Indra Frank, health director at the Hoosier Environmental Council, said the coalition understands the U.S. Department of Justice's legal argument but remains disappointed.
"Lead is toxic to a developing child’s brain even in tiny, microgram quantities, so every pound of lead pollution reduced is beneficial," she told The Star Press. "Lead in air pollution settles onto the soil fairly rapidly. Lead smelters elsewhere have contaminated neighboring properties with lead more than a mile away, and the same could be happening in Muncie."
Exide, which recycles millions of lead-acid automotive, truck and other batteries in Muncie, agreed to pay $820,000 in civil penalties and spend $4 million on new pollution control equipment to settle a federal lawsuit accusing the company of once again violating the Clean Air Act.
The coalition says a proposed consent decree doesn't require Exide to retrofit the facility with the best available control technology — wet electrostatic precipitators (WESP) — to dramatically reduce airborne emissions of lead and other pollutants from smokestacks.
Randall Stone, a justice department attorney, responded that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency three years ago rejected a general mandate to require secondary lead smelters throughout the United States to install WESP, citing "the high cost and limited incremental benefits."