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“Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain.” Posey County’s only locally-owned newspaper
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
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Volume 133 Edition 53
Posey County companies win ‘green’ awards From Sustainable Evansville Newsletter Winners of the 2013 Sustainable Evansville Awards were announced on December 10 at the Sustainable Evansville Awards Ceremony during the Rotary Club meeting. For 2013, Sustainable Evansville Awards Winners were SABIC, of Mount Vernon for its Sodium Nitrite Purge Process and another Posey County based company, Verde Partners, LLC, for its recycling program. As a result of the complex chemical processes that SABIC’s Mount Vernon, Ind., facility uses to produce engineering thermoplastic resins, waste material is generated and disposed of in a responsible manner at an off-site waste processing facility. SABIC Mount Vernon employees have successfully developed a process to reduce the amount of landfill waste, reduce energy usage, and reduce greenhouse emissions from one of its manufacturing processes. SABIC employees created a process to recover and purify the chemical, Sodium Nitrite, from a waste stream that had previously been disposed of through incineration. After an extensive internal environmental, health and safety review, SABIC now converts the Sodium Nitritecontaining waste stream to a technical grade Sodium Nitrite product and
sells it commercially for pigment manufacturing and waste biomass disinfection at wastewater treatment facilities. By separating and purifying the Sodium Nitrite-containing portion (60 percent) of the waste stream, the remaining portion of the stream (40 percent) is of a composition such that it can be disposed of as non-hazardous waste by solidifying and landfilling it. Eliminating the incineration process has resulted in a 4.0 percent reduction in total combined energy intensity for the entire Mount Vernon production facility and the off-site incineration process. Benefits of the implementation of the Sodium Nitrite purification and solidification/landfill processes, along with the elimination of the incineration process, include: • In 2011, purifying and selling the Sodium Nitrite stream resulted in a reduction of 9,766,620 pounds of nonhazardous waste. This number is expected to grow to 25,000,000 pounds per year at full Sodium Nitrite harvest and full plant production rates. • The net result of the process led to a reduction in energy use through reduction of natural gas usage by 65,000 MMBTU/year. • The facility also reduced greenhouse emission by 4,500 metric tons/
year. SABIC’s Sodium Nitrite production is 10 percent of the United States’ total Sodium Nitrite production, and our recovered Sodium Nitrite has displaced the use of raw materials to manufacture virgin Sodium Nitrite. As a landscape architect, Rick Lamble and his wife, Jenny identified a need in the Evansville landscaping industry. When customers wanted to beautify their property with flora and fauna, there was no place to recycle the used plastic containers. This resulted in hundreds of thousands of plastic containers entering Evansville SABIC Sodium Nitrite Recovery Team: from left, Lioba Kloparea landfills every year. The plastic penburg, Bryan Stegall, Chris Poirier, Tom Guggenheim, Evansville containers that hold these plants are Mayor Lloyd Winnecke, Joe Castrale, and Jake Oberholtzer. made from an industrial grade plastic that is not commonly accepted among local recyclers. Rick watched with discomfort as truckloads of these containers were hauled to the landfill after the completion of each project. He knew something had to be done. Rick and Jenny had a chance meeting with Eric Stockton, a Mount Vernon native and Sales and Applications Manager at Lucent Polymers, also located in Evansville. Rick and Jenny expressed their concern over the large volumes of plastic waste being unnecessarily landfilled and their Verde Partners owners Rick Lamble, Jenny Lamble and Evansville Continued on Page A6 Mayor Lloyd Winnecke.
MV, CountryMark deal expands soccer By Valerie Werkmeister A property exchange between Posey County and CountryMark will eventually make playing soccer a little safer for Mount Vernon youth. The Posey County Commissioners approved the transfer of approximately 15 acres of land during their December 17, meeting. Attorney Adam Farrar facilitated the transfer and explained the county owns property adjacent to Country Mark while the company owns property on Smith Road. Due to the utility lines running underneath the fields, both parties felt the land transfer would be safer for the youth. Posey County Commissioner President Carl Schmitz stated the county will work with the Mount Vernon Parks Department on a plan to move the fields. The final wording in various sections of a newly devised employee handbook for county employees was discussed. County executive secretary Keely Winiger answered questions by the three commissioners in regards to overtime pay, drug testing and vacation and comp time. Schmitz requested a slight wording change in regards to the number of hours part-time employees may work. He pointed out the current wording that states part-time employees are limited to no more than 30 hours should actually be changed to 28 hours. Commissioners Jim Alsop and Jerry Walden agreed. Schmitz also stated that drug testing should be included for supervisors and department heads. Winiger noted that the section does emphasize that drug testing applies to all county employees, but Schmitz asked for the wording to specify that is applies to those individuals as well. They also determined that members of the Discrimination Review Committee should include the county attorney, the Posey County Auditor, one commissionNorth Posey’s James Marshall goes up for the basket in Friday’s win er and one commissioner appointed person in order to over Orleans in the Graber Post Classic. See story on page A9. Photo by satisfy the male and female gender requirements on Steven Kochersperger the committee.
Briefly Posey County News holiday hours The Posey County News office will be closed January 1, 2014. We will reopen at 9 a.m. Tuesday, January 2, 2014.
North Posey Hall of Fame The North Posey Hall of Fame is still in possession of several of the plaques awarded to the 1966 Basketball Team members during the induction ceremony. They include: Gary Kincheloe, Dan Guffey, Jim Pittman, Kenny Weinzapfel, and Rodney Birch. We also have plaques for cheerleaders Jackie Thornburg, Nancy Andry, Brenda Andry, and Connie Nix. The plaques can be picked up at the Posey County News office located at 641 Third Street, New Harmony.
Recycling Center holiday closing The Cynthiana Recycling Center will be closed Wednesday, January 1.
The topic of taking vacation time in increments of one hour or half days in addition to the difficulty the county has in tracking comp time was discussed with no resolution. County offices are not equipped with electronic time clocks. Assessor Nancy Hoehn stated she was surprised when she came into office to learn that the Auditor’s office does not track comp time. She learned the time was tracked by the employee and department head. The commissioners felt members of the council should also have time for input and review on the handbook before final approval is made. They tabled approval until their meeting on January 17. Charles Malinowski of Malcon presented a proposal to the commissioners to audit ambulance services from 2011 and 2012 to determine if the county is eligible to receive a reimbursement from both the state and federal government for Medicaid services. Malinowski explained there is a tight window of opportunity to participate as the government has set a January 31, 2014 reporting deadline. Malinowski’s firm will review the ambulance billing statements from both years at a charge of $9,500. If the county is not eligible to receive any reimbursement funds, Malinowski stated the county will not be required to pay for their services. The commissioners approved the proposal. In other business, the commissioners approved: • A $251 bid for a stove in the former jail/boy’s home from Robinson Township Conservation Club. It was the only bid received. • A re-zoning request on O’Donnell Road from R2M2. • A $10,000 grant agreement with the Indiana Department of Homeland Security to purchase an automatic generator. • Keith Weedman to a one-year term on the ABC Board.
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NH Town Council reviews gas line, sewer plant By Valerie Werkmeister Members of the New Harmony Town Council voted to push forward with a project to move the town’s gas utility line off the Wabash River Bridge. A public hearing was held during their meeting on Thursday, December 19, to discuss the project. John DiDomizio of Morley and Associates presented five different proposals on how to accomplish that task during the council’s November meeting. He briefly summarized the options again and suggested option 1A would be the best option to pursue. The options ranged in price from $770,000 to $4.4 million. Option 1A involves boring under the bridge and placing the line at the minimum depth possible to provide cover for the line. Other options include extending the line to Griffin or Poseyville. Another option that may be feasible is working with Vectren to secure a new connection. DiDomizio explained Vectren is currently in the process of
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upgrading the pipes used in their utility lines and may be willing to negotiate a feasible option that would benefit New Harmony. Council members Andrew Wilson and Don Gibbs will plan a meeting with Vectren officials early in the New Year to discuss options. When asked about the risk of leaving the town’s gas utility line on the bridge, DiDomizio cautioned the council. “There are future risks with leaving it there. We could have another flood event like we’ve had in the past few years that could cause something major to happen. The fact that it’s on a structure that’s not being maintained, that isn’t currently funded, not being kept up to date, is an issue. You never want to be in that situation as a utility to have your structure on a third party, your infrastructure, your key infrastructure, on a structure like that that’s controlled by a third party that isn’t maintaining it,” DiDomizio said.
Following the public hearing, Wilson introduced Dan Elliott, who recently completed a major project with Maple Hill Cemetery. Elliott is the Posey County coordinator who maintains a genealogy website. Wilson contacted Elliott and he set about the task of cataloging and photographing all of the headstones in the cemetery. The project was daunting due to the nature of the layout of the older portion on the hill. As Elliott explained some of the newer areas are in straight lines, but the older portion resembles a jigsaw puzzle. Elliott used records and documents from Werry Funeral Home, old burial records as well as a book published by Carroll Cox, ‘Cemetery Records of Posey County’ that was complied in the 1950s to help complete his documentation project. Elliott spent countless hours taking pictures of each headstone and transcribing the discernible information from each headstone onto his website.
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A link to his work is on the Town of New Harmony’s website at www.newharmony-in.gov. The council was very pleased with Elliott’s free service and proudly presented him with a gift as a token of their appreciation. Eric Parsley of Commonwealth Engineers presented a proposal to council members to evaluate the town’s sewer plant. The scope of the project includes inventorying the equipment, establishing the condition of the equipment, determining the life cycle of those items, identifying any other issues and prioritizing the needs of the plant. The council wants to move to a proactive approach with its assets rather than a reactive state. They approved Commonwealth’s proposal to complete the work in approximately three months for a fee of $10,000. Mitch Luman, President of the
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