{child_flags:top_story}Council tables facility permit
{child_byline}Jordan Green{/child_byline}
The Longview City Council on Tuesday night tabled a decision to allow a computer recycling “bio mining” company to operate in the city limits because residents raised concerns about the impact it could have on their neighborhood.
Also at the meeting, the council approved a 15-year industrial agreement with Eastman Chemical Co. under which the city will receive millions of dollars in lieu of property taxes.
The council chambers at City Hall were filled Thursday evening, with several residents speaking about the proposed bio mining operation that could open in the future in an industrial building at 2120 E. Loop 281. The council weighed whether to approve a specific use permit for that property. Like a rezoning request, the permit would allow the company to operate at that address.
Bio mining is the practice of using microorganisms and acidic solutions to break down materials such as metal.
Wayne Mansfield, president and CEO of the Longview Economic Development Corp., said the company that seeks to do business in the facility recycles computers, breaking their components down into materials that can be used to make new computers. The company would operate indoors.
“This is not a mining operation,” Mansfield said. “This is the extraction of materials, metals, from already recycled computers. It’s a green process that moves computer units that would previously go to landfills, leeching into the soil there, and putting them back into the cycle.”
The identity of the company hasn’t been released publicly. Mansfield said anonymity is essential to the process to prevent insider trading. LEDCO is courting the business with the help of Gov. Greg Abbott’s office, which has vetted the company to ensure its viability. Other cities also are vying to lure the company.
The company would make an estimated $19 million capital investment and employ between 20 and 28 people, with salaries of roughly $60,000 annually, Mansfield said.
The company might or might not ultimately choose to come to Longview, but the permit would have to be approved before it considers opening here.
Concerns about chemicals
Residents at Thursday’s meeting said they are concerned the company could use chemicals — such as sulfuric acid — that are potentially harmful to health. They also questioned how the facility would be regulated and what other environmental impacts it could have.
Chanda Mitchell asked the council to vote against the special use permit because schools are in the area, saying children could be exposed to harmful chemicals if the business opens there. Several residents applauded her after she spoke.
Charles Hunt noted that schools, houses and a daycare are near the building where the company would be housed. He asked council members how the facility would prevent toxic chemical spills, what types of chemicals the company would use and what would happen if trucks hauling those chemicals were involved in wrecks.
Wayne Rosette said he wanted to make sure the process wouldn’t be injecting materials into the ground like other types of mining, such as lithium mining. He also said he wanted to know more about the identity of the company and whether it is reputable.
Rosette said he wanted to “have assurances that this will be a good operation here.”
Mansfield said a story about the proposed operation that aired on a local TV news station was “absolutely incorrect” as it featured an image of an excavator on top of a pile of trash.
“There’s not going to be any digging, track-hoe, computer monitors laying on the ground,” he said. “This is an inside, clean operation.”
Mansfield also said the company that previously operated in the building — a pressure-vessel manufacturing business — used chemicals on the site, and the site’s existing zoning allows that.
The company will have to have an air quality permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. However, the permit will be issued only because it is required; the company’s emissions will be below the requirements for a permit. The company also will have to have a recycling permit from the agency, and it will have to maintain insurance and a bond ensuring that it could clean up any damage that occurs on the site.
‘Nothing is risk-proof’
Walter Northcutt, a broker with BeerWells Real Estate Services — East Texas, Inc., also said the facility will not be a mining operation.
“We want to be good citizens,” he said. “We don’t want a superfund site in the middle of Longview.”
Hunt, one of the residents, asked how the acidic solutions used in the process would be disposed of. Mansfield replied that it’ll go into the city’s sewer system, but that discharges from the facility will be minimal. City wastewater officials determined that the level of discharge is low enough that the facility wouldn’t need to treat water it disposes, Mansfield said.
Mayor Andy Mack, who was presiding over his final council meeting, asked several questions clarifying ways the facility would — and wouldn’t — impact the neighborhood.
“I guess what we’re looking for out here for the citizens is that assurance that nothing is going to be adversely done inside the building that will affect those people outside the building,” Mack said. “So, who can give us that assurance?”
Mansfield replied: “Nothing is risk-proof.”
Heather Malone, vice president of LEDCO, said the TCEQ will regularly inspect the site and its operations to ensure that it isn’t causing negative environmental impacts.
No ‘adverse’ impact to area
Hunt asked council members to reach out to area residents to ask whether they’re comfortable with the business opening there.
“I don’t want to build a rattlesnake farm next to my house,” Hunt said. “I can tell you it’s going to be safe all the time, but no one can guarantee that. All I’m asking you as a council to do is do what the citizens of Longview want done.”
Mack said the city’s planning and zoning commission posted signs in the area to inform residents of their right to comment on the specific use permit. The board considered it in April and passed it along to the council for final approval.
An environmental consultant that LEDCO works with reviewed the company and found no environmental concerns to be posed by its operations, Malone said.
“They’re pulling out precious metals from this process,” she said. “It’s a very small process. And it’s a fairly large building. So there’s not a lot of environmental impact — any environmental impact — that is going to be adverse to the area.”
District 1 Councilman Tem Carpenter asked whether anyone knew that 30,000 pounds of fertilizer are stored next door to the facility — and whether people know what happens with sulfuric acid and fertilizer mix.
“We think about it every day,” Hunt said.
District 6 Councilman Steve Pirtle said the council should consult with chemical engineers in the area to learn more about how the company could operate. He said the matter should be tabled until residents are comfortable with it.
The council voted to table the specific use permit for 30 days. Mansfield said he was disappointed with the vote and didn’t know how it would impact negotiations to bring the company here. However, he said he understands the concerns of residents.
Eastman agreement
Eastman Chemical Co. will pay the city millions of dollars in lieu of municipal property taxes during the next 15 years under an industrial agreement the council approved Thursday.
The agreement will keep the city from annexing the company’s existing chemical manufacturing plant — and its newly announced $1.2 billion molecular recycling facility — into the city limits through 2038.
The facility is just outside the city limits in Harrison County.
Eastman, one of the largest employers in the area, has never been included in the city limits since it opened in 1952. If it were, the company would pay millions in city property taxes. But under state law, cities can reach agreements with industries within the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction — areas just outside the city limits — under which companies agree to pay an agreed-upon amount of money in place of the property taxes they’d pay if they were annexed.
The agreement approved Thursday replaces one that the city, Eastman and other companies in the Sabine Industrial District reached in 2010. The new agreement adds the company’s molecular recycling facility — set to be built in the next few years — to the boundaries of the industrial district that is exempt from property taxes.
Under the new agreement, the amount of money Eastman will pay the city of Longview is set to increase each year. Eastman will pay $1.25 million in 2024. By 2028, that amount will have risen to $2.6 million. By 2038, the end of the agreement, Eastman will pay $3.4 million.
Those amounts are less than what Eastman would pay the city in municipal property taxes. City officials did not provide that number Thursday to the News-Journal. In 2010, the News-Journal reported that Eastman normally would pay $2.9 million per year if it were being taxed at its full value.
Eastman leaders announced in March that the company would build a facility to recycle up to 110,000 metric tons of mixed-use plastics each year. The facility will employ about 200 people with salaries averaging roughly $90,000. That’ll add to the company’s existing workforce of more than 1,500.
The city of Longview and other taxing entities in the area struck deals with the company to incentivize Eastman to build the plant here.
Mack said Thursday that Eastman has been a strong corporate partner with the city and that he appreciated the council’s approval of the measure.
“I think we’ve made a very, very wise choice,” he said.
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