Arcelor Mittal will hold a state-required public information session Wednesday regarding its pending application for an expansion of its solid waste landfill at its Burns Harbor plant.

Mittal applied for the landfill permit with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in June and in September, the IDEM approved the “application for completeness,” requiring Mittal to hold a public meeting within 60 days of receipt of the notification.

Accordingly, Mittal will hold its public meeting Wednesday at 3 p.m. at the Burns Harbor Town Hall to review its landfill permit application.

Following Wednesday’s meeting, the IDEM will host a public hearing on the required permit on Dec. 2 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission.

This summer, Mittal secured the necessary town approval for its landfill when the Burns Harbor Board of Zoning Appeals voted 3-1 in August to approve a zoning amendment needed for the landfill expansion. Initially, the BZA rejected the zoning change, prompting Mittal to file suit. Mittal agreed to withdraw its suit as part of an agreement made when the BZA reversed itself.

Mittal wants to expand its onsite landfill to accept materials such as blast furnace filter cake, coke oven dust, sludge and other materials classified as solid waste, some of which are being stockpiled and some of which are being landfilled off site.

Mittal has contended that when the BZA first granted the special exception allowing the landfill in 2007, the approval included the waste streams that the plant now wants to landfill. Some town officials, however, said that initial approval of the special exception was only for the sludge byproduct of the mill’s wastewater treatment plant.

The full permit application is available at Westchester Public Library in Chesterton.

Posted 11/17/2009