Dear Fort Wayne City Council, Allen County Council, and Allen County Commissioners:

We, the undersigned, are in opposition to the building of an electronic waste and metal recycling plant at the corner of Paulding Road and Adams Center Road. The Chem Waste dump and other industrial sites have undermined the health and atmosphere of Southeast Allen County, and we hope to keep the remaining property intact without further destruction. Fort Wayne annexed a peninsula toward New Haven that captured the land Chem Waste wanted to use to expand its hazardous waste dump.  Since Chem Waste left, the City now plans to sell the property to a subsidiary of a UK-based company, Exurban, to build an electronic waste smelter and refinery. E-waste (old computers, phones, TVs, etc.) contains environmentally hazardous carcinogens that are not easily degraded. Substances such as cadmium, mercury and/or chromium could potentially infiltrate our environment. Because these materials have not been proven to be safely dealt with, we don’t want to risk more hazardous waste in our air, our water, our soil, or “our backyard.”  We believe this development is unjust and should be denied for the following additional reasons:

1) East Allen County Schools are within 1.5 miles from the planned smelter;
2) Prime farmlands surround the property, and discharges into the water and air from the planned smelter may pollute the crops and future use;
3) SE Fort Wayne is home to primarily low-income, underserved families and individuals;
4) Many of the residents do not speak English as their first language and may have been excluded from providing input on the plan for this reason; and
5) The voting members of the Fort Wayne Plan Commission do not represent the residents surrounding the building site.   

Please stop the sale of the property for this use.