Daviess County released 48,908 pounds of toxic chemicals in 2007, according to a report relased last month by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The good news is the total is significantly lower than any of its neighbors. Other than Greene County, Daviess had lower numbers of chemicals released than its neighbors of Martin, Pike, Dubois, Gibson and Sullivan counties.
The 2007 numbers were the latest released by the EPA. Statewide, Indiana saw an eight percent drop in toxic chemicals from the previous year but ranks third worst in the nation for pollutants.
Daviess and Greene counties rank in the top third of least polluted counties in the state. Greene County had just 396 pounds of toxic chemicals released either in waste or in the air.
The waste is mostly treated at EPA-approved dumping sites or is neutralized to eliminate any harm, the agency said in its release.
Daviess was next on the area list, followed by Martin County (155,918), Knox (443,717), Dubois (578,444), Sullivan (2,517,027), Pike (6,659,754) and Gibson (10,228,187).
But the numbers for the top three counties, Sullivan, Pike and Gibson, are high because all three counties have large coal-burning power plants combined with industrial plants.
The business that had the most pollutants in Daviess County for 2007 was Grain Processing Corporation with 21,706 pounds of toxic material released, almost half of the county’s total.
In the EPA report, most of GPCs chemicals were alcohol-related, like methanol and butyl alcohol, but some pounds of benzene and chlorine were found in the report.
The rest of the pollutants in the county were made up by the Black Beauty Coal Mine at Corning, Cornelius Manufacturing in Elnora, the Solar Sources mine in Cannelburg and the Perdue Farms feed mill.
Martin County ranked in the middle third of the counties in the state with 155,891 pounds of pollutants, most coming from the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Crane.
The U.S. Gypsum plant in Shoals was the next highest polluter with 27.3 pounds.
Knox County also has a power plant in Edwardsport that generated almost one-quarter of the pollutants in that county. Another large polluter was the Miller Creek coal mine in Bicknell.
The area furniture companies in Dubois County, led by MasterBrand, accounted for most of the chemicals in the EPA county report.
To the south of Washington, the power plants in northern Pike County accounted for all except 7,596 pounds of pollutants in the county, 6.6 million pounds.
Many of the counties in southwestern Indiana were in the top third of pollution leaders, according to the EPA. One of the largest was Spencer County, with more than 30 million pounds of pollutants released either in the air or in waste.
Local News
County ranks low in toxic chemicals released
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