Activists and community members are attempting to shield a historic Kansas City, Kansas, neighborhood from further industrialization as a recycling company, touting a new age of environmentalism, tries to wedge its way into a local warehouse.
Reworld, a global industrial waste company, wants to open a processing and recycling facility in Armourdale, a neighborhood near the Missouri border enclosed on all sides by a meander of the Kansas River, highways and an interstate.
In Reworld’s bid to the Unified Government of Wyandotte County’s planning commission for a special use permit, the company’s representatives argued that the facility would bring economic development to the area and redirect waste from aging landfills.
Armourdale residents, neighboring property owners and environmental justice advocates raised concerns about inadequate and inaccessible outreach from Reworld, potential traffic hazards, excessive noise, odors, flood risk and the company’s track record in other communities.
Most of all, said Beto Lugo Martinez, a local environmental justice activist with grassroots organization RiSE, the health and safety of a community are at risk.
“At the core of all of this is the health of the people,” Lugo Martinez said, “and the health of the people is what’s compromised.”
Reworld assured the planning commission at an Aug. 11 meeting that all waste activities will be contained within the nearly 94,000-square-foot building that has concrete walls more than a foot thick, and no incineration will take place on site.
The facility would accept commercial and industrial waste from companies such as Walmart and Procter and Gamble, which has nearby manufacturing and shipping facilities. The waste would be processed and shipped elsewhere. In some cases, waste would be transformed into usable low-carbon coal alternatives for the cement and limestone industries.
A fleet of around 30 trucks would deliver and transport the materials, resulting in a weekday average of more than 1,200 trips in and out of the facility, according to a traffic memo provided to the commission.
Previously, the building was home to a steel plant and, before that, a silver and lead smeltery, said Greg Kindle, president of the Wyandotte Economic Development Council and a proponent of Reworld’s bid.
“It’s built like a tank,” Kindle said.
But Lugo Martinez is concerned with Reworld’s track record.
The company was formerly named Covanta. It rebranded after it was bought by a Swiss private equity company, EQT. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency criminally investigated Covanta in 2018 for “alleged improprieties in the recording and reporting of emissions data during an October 2013 incident,” at the company’s Tulsa facility.
According to public enforcement and compliance records from the EPA, in October 2018, Covanta settled the investigation with a non-prosecution agreement that released the company of charges if, for a year, it satisfied requirements within the agreement and complied with other laws and regulations.
The company also paid the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality $200,000 to fund air quality and environmental efforts.
The company has signed a 15-year lease with the owners of the Armourdale facility, and it committed to bringing in 25 new jobs with a $55,000 annual base salary.
Linda Ribakusky, a spokesperson for the company, said in an emailed statement that Reworld is “excited” to serve the Kansas City community.
“We will continue to work with local community members to address any remaining concerns and questions,” Ribakusky said.
Scott Wagner, executive director of Kansas City, Missouri, environmental nonprofit Bridging the Gap, said Reworld’s project represents a new kind of environmentalism and sustainability.
“Any sort of alternative that can come forward to bring or to push away material going to the landfill only allows more time for those landfills to work,” Wagner said.
The closest public landfill to Armourdale is the Johnson County Landfill in Shawnee, which is expected to be full in the next 20 years.
Jeff Carson, chair of the planning commission, asked during the Aug. 11 meeting if the company conducted traffic, flood or environmental studies in preparation for its application, which it did not.
“Everybody knows Armourdale floods,” Carson said. “It’s been mentioned over and over and over. Basically everyone has lifejackets in their house in Armourdale, so what happens if that facility were to flood?”
The site is located in a zone designated as a minimal flood risk area, said Joe McLaughlin, a Kansas City-based civil engineer representing Reworld.
“Minimal and Armourdale and flood don’t all go in the same sentence,” Carson said.
The company intends to build a six-inch berm inside the building to protect against potential floods, said Andy Purgason, vice president of operations for Reworld.
The majority of commissioners weren’t convinced.
They voted 4-2 to delay for 30 days a decision on whether to grant Reworld’s permit. During that time, the company must meet with community groups and conduct an environmental study.
Lugo Martinez said there is nothing Reworld could do that would make him support the project.
“At the meeting, it was very evident that this industry with no ties to Kansas City is trying to bully their way into Kansas City when they have repeatedly heard from community members that they do not want this chemical recycling industry in their (community),” he said.
This story was originally published by the Kansas Reflector.
