Work on driveway at Maya Energy site on hold after city intervenes
Work on a driveway at the planned site of a controversial waste-to-fuel plant in Gary is on hold after the city intervened, pausing a previously issued construction permit.
The vacant lot on West 35th Avenue is owned by the Little Calumet River Basin Development Commission and leased by Maya Energy, who has planned for more than five years to use the land for a facility that would convert waste into burnable fuel for use in energy production. In 2017, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) issued the company an air permit to begin operating the facility, which was renewed in 2022.
So far, nothing has been built on the property, which is separated from the roadway by a wide drainage ditch.
Maya Energy president Jim Ventura said that installing a concrete culvert in the ditch and building a driveway over it would allow the company access to the site in order to address vegetation overgrowth as well as potential flooding and fire hazards. Maya hired the Calumet City, Illinois-based Hasse Construction to install the driveway. On Nov. 1, the Gary Board of Public Works and Safety issued a driveway permit to the contractor.
Work on the driveway began on Dec. 11, Ventura said, but the following day the city directed Hasse to stop work. Ventura said that the city had not provided an appropriate stop work order and directed that work begin again on Dec. 13, only for the city to intervene again.
The Gary Board of Public Works and Safety voted at its rescheduled Dec. 15 meeting to place a hold on the driveway permit.
“The permit appears to have been issued prematurely, without the approval of the Department of Environmental Affairs as is needed to certain criteria to be fulfilled pertaining to storm water management given the large culvert set to be placed and the construction involved on the site,” the city Law Department wrote in a memorandum to the board. The document was read at the meeting by chief of staff Joy Holliday, who serves as the board’s secretary.
“Additionally, there appear to be activities taking place on the premises that raise questions about whether only maintenance and mowing were occurring or if there were other activities that may require a permit or site plan review,” the Law Department wrote. “The recommendation would be to have the applicant work with the appropriate city officials, including city engineer, Building Department, Department of Environmental Affairs and storm water management to resolve any issues.”
City spokesman Michael Gonzalez declined to provide additional details.
While former Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson initially supported Maya’s proposed facility, her successor, Jerome Prince, has been antagonistic toward the project.
“My position has been pretty consistent,” Prince told the Post-Tribune, “and that is I personally, and as the administration, did not want to move forward with Maya Energy.”
Ventura believes that the city has not provided an adequate explanation for its handling of the permit, and said that his company intends to move ahead with the driveway installation, and will pursue legal action against the city if it proves necessary.
“Our attorney already is on it,” he said. “They’re trying to just show the city that we can move forward.”
Maya Energy’s proposed facility has prompted legal action from environmental advocates.
In May, attorneys with the Environmental Law & Policy Center refiled a complaint with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of External Civil Rights Compliance on behalf of the grassroots group Gary Advocates for Responsible Development. The organization alleged that IDEM violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by renewing Maya Energy’s air permit for the site, which sits near the predominantly Black neighborhood of Glen Park and across the street from Steel City Academy Charter School.