Indy residents questions Super Bowl deal that cleared air

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Rotten eggs. Sulfur. Natural gas. Near Southside residents describe the odors that permeate their neighborhood in many ways.

"This neighborhood, it just stinks," said Lisa Barnes, 52, who has lived with it for years. "It just stinks like a sewer."

Officials at the nearby Metalworking Lubricants Co. plant have insisted that what is known as the "Southside stench" isn't caused by the dozens of smudged tanks behind their chain-link fence.

Government regulators, too, have said they don't have proof the company is the source. And even if they did, they say, they can't regulate smells.

But those regulators knew where to turn when they wanted to put an abrupt end to the smell in 2012. With Super Bowl XLVI only a week away, an Indianapolis Star investigation recently discovered, city and state officials quietly signed an agreement to suspend operations at Metalworking Lubricants for seven days in the lead up to and during the nationally televised NFL festivities.

Some activists and residents say the Super Bowl deal raises questions about what the city and state promised the company in order to persuade it to shut down. Were favors offered, some ask, in exchange for ensuring a stink-free event at Indy's nearby Lucas Oil Stadium?

City and state officials insist no favors were extended. But to residents - who had complained about the odor for years - the Super Bowl deal stings in other ways.

"It strikes me as unfair and unfortunate that we can provide clean air and non-smelly air for visitors who come for the Super Bowl, but not for our citizens who are in the path of this odor every day," Southside resident Jim Simmons told The Indianapolis Star (http://indy.st/1EvH5Dk ).

As state environmental regulators propose a new air-quality permit for the company, more than 100 activists and residents from the impoverished neighborhood recently packed a hearing.

Many of them cast the Super Bowl agreement as social justice question. Would a wealthy suburb such as Carmel have to endure such a stench so long? Who's more important: the high rollers attending the Super Bowl or average Hoosiers?

Metalworking Lubricants, based in Pontiac, Michigan, employs around 50 people at its Indianapolis plant at 1509 S. Senate Ave. It recycles dirty oil and makes cleaners, lubricants, rust inhibitors and other industrial oil-based products, according to its website. Inside the Indianapolis facility's fence, a large warehouse, several smaller buildings and dozens of storage tanks loom large.

On one recent day near the fence, a chemical odor, akin to window cleaner and gasoline, was particularly strong. On another recent day, the smell was similar to rotten eggs.

City officials have for years argued that the stench comes from the company. They call it a drain on public safety resources as crews respond to frequent false-alarm reports of natural gas leaks in the neighborhood.

A new permit is now being considered that state officials say could help the odor problem. State officials have proposed adding more stringent pollution limits, factoring in equipment that wasn't in the original permit, and requiring the company to more thoroughly test what chemicals are being released.

But at a recent public meeting at Manual High School, neighbor after neighbor took the podium to express their frustrations with both the state and the city.

They said smells from the plant are so noxious they scare away guests, prevent them from going outside and stymie efforts to revitalize what's long been an impoverished area south of Downtown.

Darrell Unsworth, a neighborhood activist who owns a home near Garfield Park, testified that some are wary of letting kids play outside.

"You can't walk in the park in the summertime because it stinks," he said. "It burns your eyes."

Neighbor David Buchanan testified that the smell is giving out-of-towners the wrong impression.

"I have a lot of tourists walk by me and say 'Where's Shapiro's?'" he said referring to the iconic Kosher deli on South Meridian Street. "It's amazing to me how many also go, 'And what is that odor?'"

He said that one potential tenant declined to rent from him because of the ever-present stench.

"So that business is affecting my business," he said.

Jeff Veldhof, the owner of Lauck & Veldhof Funeral and Cremation Services, had similar concerns.

"We always hope and pray it's blowing somewhere else when a family comes to see us," he said.

When it comes to fixing the problem, residents have found themselves in a sort of regulatory no-man's land.

It wasn't until 2013 that the Chicago office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a violation notice, alleging the company wasn't keeping adequate records or maintaining its scrubber properly "to control sulfur emission and resulting odors."

The action is still pending.

Prior to the federal involvement, state and city officials point at each other for why the agencies, whose headquarters are within walking distance of the plant, have done little to address air-quality concerns.

State officials say the city had primary oversight of air quality prior to 2009. City officials say there's little they can do now that the state is in charge.

Meanwhile, the state has issued no air-quality citations against the company in spite of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management receiving at least 30 complaints about the smell since 2010.

The response to those complaints is often the same: "No regulatory authority." IDEM insists it can't regulate foul odors.

Matthew Stuckey, branch chief of IDEM's air permitting department, says the city shares the blame because it crafted a weak air permit for the company. Stuckey said Metalworking Lubricants' permit issued in 2003 and modified slightly in 2008 only set emissions limits on boilers and a few tanks, ignoring nearly 100 tanks used for storage and production.

"They just simply didn't do a thorough job," Stuckey said

The state is bound by the terms of that permit, he said. "It makes it very difficult for us to turn around and say 'Well, you didn't obtain the proper permits,' when our Indianapolis inspectors were aware that it was present. To go in now and shut down a facility based on that would be very difficult. It would be fraught with a lot of litigation."

Stuckey also said the city isn't powerless; it could pursue the company under public nuisance laws.

"They have their own ordinances," he said. "I'm relegated to state law."

But City Prosecutor Samantha DeWester said she's not been asked to pursue any nuisance violations against the company, even though she says complaints about the smell are well known.

"Unless there's some empirical data or something to show that there's pollution," she said, "we can't just say 'Well, it smells, so therefore it must be a violation.'"

But when the city decided it needed to clear the air for the Super Bowl, it went directly to the company.

Jen Pittman, Mayor Greg Ballard's spokeswoman, said the city had a unique motivation for shutting the plant down. Over the years, she said, utility crews have been constantly called to the area for false-alarm reports of natural gas leaks.

Pittman said the city didn't want to have to divert public safety resources from the huge crowds downtown during the Super Bowl.

A "voluntary agreement" was signed Jan. 23, 2012, by Rick Powers, the city's then-code enforcement chief; Tom Easterly, the top official at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management; and the company's president. None of them would speak with The Star for this story.

The agreement says that between Jan. 30 to Feb. 6, the company would conduct "no activity" at the South Senate Avenue plant's oil processing center. City and state inspectors would have access to the plant during that time, and the company would be required to "submit time-dated photographs" to verify it had shut down.

The city also agreed to suspend any enforcement actions during the shutdown, unless "an odor event ... is attributable to Metalworking and is potentially disruptive of Super Bowl-related activities."

Echoing concerns of others on the Southside, the Rev. Larry Janezic of Sacred Heart Catholic Church wonders why his parishioners have never received the same treatment.

He believes the lingering foul smells create the impression the rest of the city doesn't care about them.

"People are discouraged," Janezic said. "It adds to the sense that the neighborhood is going downhill."

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Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com