Penalty inflation 6 June 2003 photos 72,000 tons per year of new coal will not be used for process heat Dec. 18, 2002 5-year-old violations in the fore Sep. 26, 2001 appeal time bar Aug. 26, 2001 EAB decision 2 Apr. 23, 2001 EAB decision 1 June 22, 2000

Update of this site basically ended in May 2000 following an unfortunate event.  Please view most of it in historical time context.   A group of citizens felt that there were plans in the works for an inappropriate land use in Whitley County, Indiana.  Local “economic development” government, operating in secret in order to “be competitive,” was planning to give millions of dollars of  “corporate welfare” payments to a steel company as an “inducement” for them to take hundreds of acres of green farmland out of food production.

Read the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s writing that the Indiana Department of Environmental Management committed sufficient errors that the air permit should be remanded.

    The group incorporated C. O. W. as a taxpaying not- for- profit entity such that they could spend funds freely for political purposes.  When free speech was suppressed by the Columbia City Post & Mail newspaper, C. O. W. bought a full page ad in both the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette and News- Sentinel 30 July 1998.

    A special election was held 11 August 1998, and a change was accomplished.  On 3 November, in the general election, there was again a positive result.

Here is what we are doing now.
Outdoor informational signs
Here is where we are.
 A potpourri of links
The Toxic Release Inventory

Keep our flag flying over a land of liberty, free- speech, and open visible government.  Contributions to Citizens Organized Watch, Inc., P.O. Box 682, Columbia City IN 46725 are needed such that active government improvement may continue.

Late February 1999 photo
Click on photo for a more recent larger photo.

    A couple miles downwind from the above proposed emitter of more than 3,600 pounds per year of neurotoxic airborne lead was this billboard of Gov. Frank O’Bannon.

Who’s side are you on, Governor?

    About $9,000,000 of State money is to be given, with Gov. Frank O’Bannon’s blessing, to cause this “clean” 1984 style electric steel project, and the lead + arsenic + cadmium + mercury compounds will rain down on three nearby schools (Coesse, Arcola & Suburban Lutheran).
    Richard Teets, designated manager for the creation of the new mill complex, said that if the citizens of Whitley or Allen County were in any danger, he would quit on moral principles.  Well, we as citizens are in danger, and we are waiting for remedial actions by Mr. Teets and Gov.O’Bannon to speak for their integrity.
    Toxic chemicals in our air and water have been linked to leukemia, breast Cancer, lower sperm count and abnormal secondary sex characteristics.
    “Lead, even at low levels, is associated with harmful effects to children’s behavior; higher levels of lead can cause seizures, coma and death.” (CDC , Nov. 1997)
    SDI may belch out 1.82 tons of lead a year near three elementary schools.  If the baghouse fails, it could be a hundred pounds in a couple of hours.
    Allen County already has the highest rate of breast cancer and childhood leukemia in the state.
    How healthy of a future will our children have living in the shadow of SDI?

Billboard at SE corner of US 30 & Solon Road, Allen County, IN, 8 April 1999

This website is electronically hosted by Whitley County Community Network, Inc. (“WCCN”) www.whitleynet.org  The views expressed on this website are those of COW and not of WCCN.

Revised 8 March 2004, page assembled 5 September 1998