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Newport City staff and its residents have spent almost three years mired in a court case intended to require River Metals Recycling to comply with noise regulations after neighbors have reported sporadic and sometimes daily explosions for years.
It looks like their wish is coming true.
In an agreement between the city and River Metals Recycling, known as RMR, the facility has agreed to move its shredding operations to the former Garden Street Iron & Metal based in Cincinnati, acquired in October 2023, with some stipulations.
This agreement is contingent upon Campbell County District Court Judge Cameron Blau signing off on it at a court date scheduled for Feb. 20.
“If the operations are indeed moved—substantially reduced in Newport and moved over across the river, I would think that this is a win,” Newport Clifton Neighborhood Association President Chad Silber said. “I’m encouraged by that, and I think the city should be commended for getting RMR at the table, even getting this far. I’m always the type of person that’s like ‘trust but verify,’ so when I see the actual steps being made, I will feel better.”
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This agreement is in lieu of a previously scheduled March 5 bench trial; however, should the deal not be signed on Feb. 20, the case could go to trial.
“I believe that we’ve got commitments here that are much stronger than we’ve ever heard from them before,” Newport Assistant City Manager John Hayden said. “It’s a much bigger ask than we could have gotten from the court. The judge would have been limited to a fine per violation (with a max of $10,000 for the five violations), and the city doesn’t even get that money.”
According to the agreement to fully consolidate its shredding operations, RMR is currently making “substantial improvements” to the Cincinnati facility, including installing a new pre-shredder, which they anticipate being operational in 12 months.
RMR has already begun to reduce the shredder operation at the Newport facility, the agreement reads. Hayden said he anticipates RMR’s shredding operations to be moved before they reach 12 months.
Under the agreement, the facility may continue to operate as a collection, processing and transfer site. RMR will also be required to install a FireRover at the Newport facility, which can detect emerging hot spots and further reduce the risk of fire.
The citations and the district court charges will be dismissed upon installing and operating the FireRover and terminating shredding.
“I think the hardest thing, probably on the residence side, was the waiting game because now we’re in court, and we’re dealing with that, and we’re talking to the attorneys, but we can’t come out and say ‘this is what’s going on,’” Hayden said. “So, you know, we’re hearing the rumors. We’re seeing the stuff on Facebook; we’re hearing all that, but we’re trying to be careful about what we say and what our message is while trying to be neutral and trying to be fair to everybody.”
RMR’s Regional Manager Neal Coulardot said that for RMR, which has 19 facilities across six states, maintaining good relationships in communities is a priority. The company said in a news release that it is pleased that, “after a concerted and cooperative effort by both parties, the City of Newport joins RMR in the agreement and supports the diversion and dismissal of all charges.”
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“We value our very positive working relationship with the City of Newport, which has spanned several decades,” Coulardot said. “We are proud of the role our facility plays in the circular economy by providing the recycled scrap that is used to make some of the lowest carbon-embodied steel in the world. This business has been at this Newport location since World War II, and we’re proud to have continued its operation for the last 40 years.
“We are even more proud of our track record of supporting our community by employing 33 people at our Newport facility, doing business with numerous local and regional companies, providing financial support and volunteering for many worthy organizations, and being a good corporate neighbor.”
Though Newport residents said the intent contained in the agreement is encouraging, they think there are still some holes that would allow RMR to continue operations as is.
“We’ve had so many broken promises from RMR that it is hard for the citizen’s group and the residents to really believe without having specific teeth in the agreement and seeing true actions,” Newport resident and Chair of the RMR Citizen’s Group Annette Kitchen said. “The agreement doesn’t appear to show any accountability or responsibility to RMR, and that’s a concern.”
Kitchen is referring to other stipulations outlined in the agreement as follows:
The commonwealth and RMR have agreed that the charges should be diverted if RMR cannot terminate shredding due to procurement, installation, permitting, or other matters involving the Cincinnati facility outside RMR’s control. They may apply to the district court, and the court can grant an extension of the period to achieve termination of shredding.
After the pre-shredder is installed and operating in Cincinnati, RMR intends to cease operation of the shredder at the Newport facility, except in the circumstances outlined in the agreement, which include maintaining the shredder at Newport so that it is available in the event of an emergency or “significant” mark condition changes.
RELATED: Newport scrap metal plant hopes sound barrier reduces noise disturbing neighbors
The pre-shredder, Hayden said, tears things up in bigger chunks at a much lower speed. He said it is the city’s understanding that most of the explosions heard by residents tend to be from propane tanks. People hide them in trunks of cars, washers, or dryers because they can’t recycle them. Then, when they get crushed down, the tank explodes.
Once RMR ceases its Newport shredding operations, the shredder at the site cannot be used except for the following:
- Four hours per month (with no material running through the shredder) to maintain its operating condition.
- In case of a mechanical or logistical problem at any of RMR’s metal recycling facilities in Cincinnati, Ashland, KY, or Louisville, KY. It can only be used until that facility’s mechanical or logistical problem is resolved. RMR must also make “reasonable efforts” to provide 48-hour notice to the city and attempt to fix the problem quickly.
- If the Cincinnati facility exceeds its capacity temporarily, RMR can use the Newport facility no more than 75 days in a 12-month period. They must also make “reasonable efforts” to provide a 48-hour notice.
- Should market conditions “significantly change,” RMR may resume continuous operation of the shredder but only after they have begun to install a pre-shredder—though RMR can resume operation before the actual installment. They must make “reasonable efforts to provide a 21-day notice to the city.
One specific issue Kitchen said she had with the agreement was there being no cap on the number of explosions within the 75-day rolling 12-month period.
“I’d like to see if there is an explosion per day, then the operations are shut down for that day or if there are consecutive days,” Kitchen said. “Unfortunately, with us not at that table because it was a criminal case, we really don’t have a voice, so we do have to trust that the city of Newport has our safety, health and our best interest.”
Kitchen also said that she believes the Newport facility should be required to implement a pre-shredder for its operations during the 75-day rolling period.
Newport Planning and Building Director Brian Steffen said it would not be very feasible for RMR to move back and forth between facilities.
“It’s just not cost-effective to start the shredder back up,” Steffen said. “According to them, it is very expensive to do. They’ll have, I think, 15 employees remaining on site here in Newport and 100 at Garden Street, so just logistic-wise, it would be very impractical to run this plant and the one on Garden Street.”
Hayden said the city will continue to keep an eye on what RMR is doing, and nothing prevents the city from more charges if necessary.
“Part of the conversation that we’re going to be having back with these guys is what are you guys going to do to help us in the meantime to slow this down and try to mitigate it, but I hope that we don’t have to, but I wouldn’t say no, for sure,” he said.
Further, Hayden said neither the city nor Blau, through the criminal case, can cease RMR’s shredding operations entirely.
RELATED: Newport recycling company faces new charges after additional explosions
“I reiterate the fact that we’re not trying to shut this company down,” Silber said. “I think they provide a service. I just think they need to provide that service where it’s not so abusive to local residents.”
Something that Hayden said makes this agreement different from past promises from RMR is that this is a court order. Previous agreements, like what was outlined in an August 2023 news release, were just commitments.
News of an agreement was announced in a Newport news release on Aug. 11, 2023, ahead of a previously scheduled bench trial on Aug. 14, 2023.
Commitments outlined in the news release were RMR implementing a pre-shredder and a fire rover at the Newport facility. The release said that the initial investment by RMR will exceed $5.5 million and add operating costs of over $600,000 annually.
But those things never happened.
Behind the scenes, RMR representatives told the city they would move their shredding operations out of the city entirely.
“Of course, that sounded great, but then they swore us to the utmost level of secrecy,” Hayden said. “So, we weren’t able to convey that. All I could really say was, ‘I think the solution they have is going to be better than a pre-shredder. I think you’re going to be very happy with it, but we just can’t tell you yet.’ Of course, that bred all sorts of questions and concerns. It was a lot, and it was difficult for us to keep that under wraps.”
Hayden said they must have some force of law behind their agreement because they couldn’t have a situation where RMR goes back on promises made.
Per the agreement, RMR signing it is not to be “deemed or interpreted as a finding or admission of any violation, wrongdoing or liability on the part of RMR.”
The moves RMR has made to purchase the recycling facility in Cincinnati and the months-long discussion with the city to form the legal agreement, Hayden said, also shows the business’s intent. He said having RMR President Bob Eviston start personally meeting with city staff is what helped it get across the finish line.
“We feel very confident that this is the deal that they want, and this is the deal that we’re happy with,” Hayden said.
Hayden credited Kitchen’s work with the city as a big reason this effort moved across the finish line.
“The great thing about working with Annette was she was extremely professional with us,” Hayden said, “She maintained a great degree of confidentiality in an issue where I can only imagine that she was getting bombarded with questions and things that she probably knew about that she wasn’t at liberty to say and didn’t. Her cooperation and her confidentiality with us are two of the big reasons it got across the finish line. We wouldn’t have had that if we didn’t have a neighbor that understood it.”
Both Silber and Kitchen said they want to see RMR management get involved with the residents to help reset the relationship. Silber said he was more than willing to invite RMR to come to a Clifton Neighborhood Association meeting.
“I would like to see them not only open the door to hear residents’ concerns but actually work with us directly,” Kitchen said.
Background for going to trial:
The city started sound monitoring in 2020, looking for any potential violations of the city’s industrial standards in its zoning code. They first began seeing violations and recorded some activity that would exceed the thresholds in the code in January 2021—which is when the misdemeanor charges were brought before Blau.
During that time, RMR built a sound wall from August to October 2021.
“Their hopes that they communicated to us is that the sound wall or sound barrier was going to reduce any sort of felt impact from combustion events for the residence in Clifton,” Steffen said. “We quickly found that that was not the case.
Steffen said the city had been responding to complaints about RMR before the initial monitoring started.
That sound monitoring lasted roughly 18 months. The idea behind it, the city said, was to create a baseline and facts so that they had evidence to work with.
“Once we did that, we decided, what’s the best way for us to enforce this because we’re getting a lot of questions from the neighborhood,” Hayden said. “We didn’t want to do something that was just for show. We wanted to be able to get some results and be able to get the neighbors some relief from what their concerns were. We thought that the strongest way that we could go forward was through the zoning code; we had the standards for noise, and so the remedy there was a misdemeanor.”
This move by the city, Hayden said, was unique and not something they would typically do against a business, but he said RMR was clearly in violation.
“The hope wasn’t about wanting to be punitive with river metals, but it was one to get them to come to the table and come up with a solution that would alleviate these concerns the residents were bringing,” Hayden said.
The city said this case is not closed as long as there are concerns out there and as long as there is activity that could be seen as detrimental to the residents.
Kitchen said from the citizens’ group perspective, they will continue efforts and work with the city until the issue is entirely resolved.
Silber echoed those statements.
“I hope the city doesn’t just close the book and walk away after this,” Silber said. “From my interactions with John, Bryan, and the city manager (Tom Fromme), everybody involved indicates to me that there will be continued monitoring. If RMR continues operations in the manner that they have in this 12-month period or after per the arrangement, I would hope and think that the city would continue to back the residents in some further action.”
Hayden said the city is cautiously optimistic about the settlement but will remain vigilant.
Other things in the works:
Aside from Newport residents supporting the city’s criminal case against RMR, they have also taken action to do air quality and soil quality testing around RMR and are supporting two state bills targeting recycling facilities like RMR.
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