Be careful what you wish for...

[CaptainChewbacca]

...because you might get it

themorningcall.com
Residents: Plant worse than a Wal-Mart
Dispute: Tensions heat up between neighbors, RPM.
By Matt Assad

Of The Morning Call

August 17, 2008

Walt Neidlinger spent years trying to keep a Wal-Mart-anchored shopping complex from being built near his Wind Gap home.

The traffic would have been suffocating for their little community, neighbors argued, so when the massive retailer and its partners packed up their plans and left Plainfield Township last year, Neidlinger was ecstatic. He figured he'd wait for the next plan to come along and remembers thinking, ''What could be worse than Wal-Mart?''

Over the past year, Neidlinger says, he's gotten an answer: RPM Recycling -- the metal-shredding plant on the same land -- causes daily noise that sounds like a freight train rumbling down the street, and frequent explosions that shake his walls.

Last week, a fire at the recycling plant inflamed growing tensions between residents, who say the plant has ruined their neighborhood, and RPM co-owner Nolan A. Perin, who says he's spent $200,000 to help calm the noise and wonders why he's being criticized for bringing industry to an industrial park.

Neidlinger said the shredding operation is a payback for opposition to the Wal-Mart project.

''The noise is a constant nuisance and the explosions make our windows shake,'' Neidlinger said. ''I just feel Mr. Perin put this there out of spite after the shopping center development fell through.''

Perin, who owns the 200 acres near the Wind Gap border, denies that.

''That's about as childish a thought as a person can have,'' Perin said. ''We proposed that recycling plant long before the [Wal-Mart] retail development fell through. I want to be a good neighbor, but I wish people would bring their complaints to me, rather than the media.''

The dispute has prompted Suzanne Hendershot of Liberty Street, who lives a few hundred yards from the plant, to start a petition asking Plainfield Township to crack down on problems at RPM.

''Plainfield put it in,'' Hendershot said. ''But they don't have to live with it, we do.''

The land was to be home to a retail center that would have included Wal-Mart and a Lowe's Home Improvement warehouse, but after years of debate that included vocal opposition from residents, developers withdrew the plans in January 2007.

RPM Recycling opened in October on 4.5 acres bordering Wind Gap. Perin said it was always slated to share the land with the Wal-Mart development -- not retaliation for opposition -- and papers filed with Plainfield in 2003 support that.

Most residents didn't know it was coming largely because it is an approved use for that land and did not need any additional approvals by the township's zoning office, said Plainfield zoning officer Charles L. Knecht Jr.

Owned by Perin, Joseph Raimo and George Miller, RPM takes in 300 tons of scrap a day. The scrap includes everything from appliances to bicycles, but is mostly crushed cars. The scrap must arrive without batteries and fuel tanks. After the shredder slices it into small pieces, the foam, plastic, cardboard and other ''fluff'' is separated. The metal is then sold on a lucrative open market, with scrap selling for more than $500 a ton.

But RPM has had its share of controversy. In May, an RPM worker died when a large piece of metal fell on his head. The incident is under investigation by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Then, on Aug. 9, fire swept through the 300 tons of fluff and scrap, sending a thick plume of black smoke over Neidlinger's and Hendershot's homes and bringing more than 100 firefighters from 18 stations.

Hendershot said she and her neighbors ended up with sore throats, headaches -- and new concerns about RPM.

The explosions, Perin acknowledged, probably happen when propane or oxygen tanks that are stashed in vehicles sold to RPM as scrap get shredded.

Perin said he recently paid $200,000 for a machine to pry open locked hoods and trunks so that his workers can better inspect the cars. Although there were as many as eight explosions in a month, Perin said there have been none since July 8.

''I can't guarantee there will never be an explosion,'' Perin said, noting the new machine is already working. ''But I think there won't be as many.''

The shredder noise will continue between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays, he said. According to township ordinance, the noise cannot exceed 70 decibels at the RPM property line.

Knecht, the township zoning officer, said he believes the noise does not exceed that at the edge of the plant property, but it may be louder on the porches of some of the nearby homes.

''Noise is a funny thing,'' said Knecht, who has investigated several of the noise complaints. ''Because of the way it bounces off mountains, or travels through passages, sometimes it's actually louder for people farther away. Unfortunately, our ordinance doesn't take that into account.''

What that leaves is a Wind Gap community angry with RPM. And, Knecht said, a no-win situation for Plainfield.

''When retail wanted in there, people said 'no' because they wanted industry,'' Knecht said. ''Now industry is in there and they're not happy. We're darned if we do and darned if we don't.''

I know there's a HUGE movement against 'big box' stores, and Lord knows it was hard enough to get a Target approved in my last town, but did any of them consider what ELSE might get put in?

[Pelranius]

At least the plant is actually contributing more American productivity than a Wal Mart stocked with foreign goods would be.

I really wish it had been placed in one of those NIMBY exurb communities. Lord knows they deserve it.