The Mobile, Ala., City Council unanimously passed additional laws governing metal shredding operations at its recent council meeting, held Aug. 22. The passage came despite objections from Alter Trading Corp., which has the largest such operation in Mobile.
The new restrictions call for shredders to remove all mercury switches, gas, oil and fluids before crushing a car, in language that Alter's lawyer complained was unreasonably tough.
The rules say shredders can't stack cars more than 25 feet off the ground, aimed at complaints over the towers of cars that Alter has built up in advance of its opening.
Shredders also must build a 6-foot-high fence or wall between their plant and any public street or any property not zoned for industrial use.
Still unclear is whether or how the city will enforce the removal of mercury and other hazardous materials.
Councilman William Carroll said he hoped the Alabama Department of Environmental Management could use the city law as an extra enforcement tool.
City government has struggled for months over how to regulate car shredders. At first, officials planned to impose no environmental restrictions.
Mobile Baykeeper intervened and pushed Alter and a second shredding operation owned by David Hickman to agree to some rules on how the operators would test, store and dispose of mercury and other hazardous materials.
The city Planning Commission attached those conditions to the permits it gave Alter and Hickman, allowing them to operate car shredders.
Anderson told the council that he would prefer the city write its law using the language of the Baykeeper deal and said that under the city's version, the company could be convicted of a crime in Municipal Court if it missed even one mercury switch.
"This, in our opinion, is an unenforceable standard because it is zero tolerance," Anderson said. "We don't think that the city should get into the environmental enforcement business."
After Baykeeper reached its deal, the Planning Commission allowed St. Louis-based Alter to go ahead, despite opposition from nearby Chickasaw residents. Most of the site off Craft Highway borders Chickasaw, though it's in Mobile's city limits.
A separate action at the City Council meeting cleared the way for Hickman's second, smaller shredder. That site won rezoning approval from light industrial to heavy industrial, which will clear the way for Hickman to begin construction. He said he plans to open by Jan. 1 and will employ 30 or more people. Mobile Press-Register