The move was reminiscent of Kanye West storming the stage before Taylor Swift could accept her trophy at the 2009 MTV awards. Wayne Township Trustee Rick Stevenson swiped the microphone from a stunned Bruce Warshauer, who was ready to answer questions about the new recycling and transfer station he runs.

The ambush by Stevenson happened at a town hall meeting last month at the Samuel Walker Community Center about the new operation at 2509 E. Pontiac St. His crusade against the business, which he calls a dump, shows that although the city’s effort to rebid its garbage contract fell through, the issue is still spurring plenty of controversy.

For residents living close to the recycling and transfer center, only time will confirm whether it will be the good neighbor the owners claim. But a potential benefit for all residents is that the station could encourage more competition among trash contractors, leading to better rates and service.

Summit Recycling and Transfer is co-owned by Warshauer and Jerry Henry – Mayor Tom Henry’s brother. The partners announced plans for the station in 2008, but the company received little attention until city officials announced an upstart business, Earth First, was the top contender for the garbage contract. Earth First’s plan called for using Summit Recycling and Transfer to process Fort Wayne’s garbage and recycling before hauling the waste to a landfill outside Allen County.

All other interested garbage companies – except the current contractor, National Serv-All – also planned to use Summit. But Earth First also proposed giving Henry and Warshauer a stake in Earth First in exchange for office space on Summit’s property. Henry ultimately turned down an ownership stake, and Earth First’s office will not be on Pontiac, but the proposal raised concerns.

And it brought attention to the recycling and transfer station because Earth First’s plans called for garbage trucks to haul waste daily to the center, where it would be dumped, then loaded onto semi trucks.

Boring but important

Last year Henry and Warshauer conducted a public meeting at the Pontiac library branch and shared a PowerPoint presentation about their plans to invest $3.5 million to redevelop the brownfield site with neighborhood leaders. They spoke with City Councilman Glynn Hines, who represents the area; Cherise Dixie, the city’s southeast neighborhood advocate; and leaders representing all the active neighborhood associations near the property.

They heard nary a complaint to the plan.

“We built exactly what we said we were going to build,” Warshauer said. “The mission hasn’t changed from what we presented to the BZA.”

Summit Recycling did not need a change of zoning to operate the station, but a special-use permit from the Board of Zoning Appeals was necessary.

The BZA granted the permit after a hearing in September 2008.

The company was also awarded a permit from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in July.

The environmental permit-application process required public notices, public review of the permit application and a 60-day period for public comment.

“IDEM doesn’t hand these out like valentines. We had to go through a very extensive process,” Henry said.

There were no objections to the project until more than a year after it was proposed. Not a single concern was voiced until well after the needed permits were granted and the station was built.

The objections led by Stevenson come far too late. Summit Recycling and Transfer is already open for business.

Local planning, zoning and permitting decisions are arcane and boring – until someone wants to build something objectionable near your property. The accusations that Henry and Warshauer were secretive about their plans are without merit. A story about the proposal ran on the front page of The Journal Gazette’s Metro section on Sept. 28, 2008.

Stevenson’s role

Much of Stevenson’s mission as trustee is looking after the interests of the underserved. Accusations that he is overstepping his authority are off base. But questioning why he waited so long to protest and why his attack seems more focused on Earth First, the bidder for the city’s garbage contract, rather than how Summit Recycling and Transfer will operate is legitimate.

“We’re not against economic development. We’re not against any one company, whether it be Earth First or Summit Recycling,” Stevenson said. “We are just against garbage being dumped in any neighborhood.”

But in a column Stevenson wrote for Frost Illustrated, he refers to the Pontiac Street station as “the Earth First transfer station” and suggests Earth First is responsible for its location.

“At the Town Hall meeting, I told the group about a study I have read, the Cerrell Report.

“This report advises garbage companies that the best place to locate landfills or dumps is in low-income areas. There the garbage companies generally will encounter the least resistance to the facility. That is exactly what Earth First is doing,” he wrote.

Stevenson mentions Earth First four times in the column. He never mentions Summit Recycling and Transfer, the correct owners of the facility he is protesting.

Stevenson said the transfer station will cause odor, litter and traffic congestion problems for neighbors. He also suggests it will lower property values.

He said he will present a petition with more than 2,000 signatures opposing the city’s garbage going to the Pontiac facility to the City Council on Tuesday.

Better than before

The recycling and transfer station may not be every homeowner’s dream neighbor, but it is far better than the former foundry that used to be there.

Foundries are a dirty industry with plenty of potential for air, soil and water pollution. Summit removed about 8,000 tons of hazardous heavy-metal sand from the property.

The property has long been zoned for heavy industrial activity. Stevenson and the neighbors aghast at the prospect of the property being used to process recycling and solid waste appear naïve.

Considering the zoning, it is certain that the property would either remain vacant or become the site of another industrial operation.

By locating the recycling center at the former foundry site, Henry and Warshauer are putting a previously vacant and dilapidated property back on the tax rolls. They have also improved the appearance of the property.

Henry said the one neighbor he did hear from was a woman living near a parking lot across Pontiac from the recycling center. She appreciated that the company cleaned up the parking lot and added landscaping.

Another positive aspect to the recycling and transfer station that should not be ignored is the jobs it will bring to the community. Summit currently has six employees but anticipates hiring up to 30 people. The jobs offer a decent wage (up to $16 an hour for heavy-equipment drivers) and health insurance.

Dump versus transfer station

Opponents of the recycling and transfer station are calling it a dump, but there is a difference. Summit’s permit from IDEM does not allow the company to operate a dump. The permit requires that every load brought into the facility also leave it. The center’s floor must be completely cleared within 24 hours.

Trucks will bring the waste in and pay a fee to Summit based on weight.

Summit workers will sort out everything recyclable for resale. The remaining waste goes to a landfill. For every six trucks that drop off loads at the transfer station, only one truckload will go to a landfill.

“C and D – construction and demolition debris – is very illustrative of what will be recycled here,” Jerry Henry said as he watched a green truck from Veolia Environmental Services drop off a load for recycling last Tuesday.

Henry and Warshauer said that while they provided quotes to four of the five bidders for the city’s garbage contract, and the facility could handle municipal waste if needed, the facility was really built with a focus on recycling.

It is important to note that while Summit’s plan is to make money on the recycling side, it’s likely that any garbage hauler other than National Serv-All winning a local garbage contract will use Summit’s transfer station to haul the refuse somewhere other than the local landfill, owned by Serv-All. Summit would also handle the residential recycling.

Competition is good

“We could handle municipal waste,” Warshauer said. “But we just didn’t think we would get it (the contract) because of the competitive advantage of the local landfill.”

National Serv-All has a built-in competitive advantage when bidding on local garbage contract because it owns the closest landfill accepting residential waste. Competitors have little choice but to pony up extra money to transport solid waste to landfills outside the county. A potential benefit of Summit Recycling and Transfer is that it could open up competition. The increased competition will likely encourage better rates and service in the market.

The transfer station could play a role in Fort Wayne taxpayers getting a decent deal on garbage and recycling contracts when the city rebids the trash and recycling contract in 2010.

A heightened emphasis on recycling would also serve the best interests of city residents.