INDIANAPOLIS (MIRROR INDY) — At a community meeting last week, a handful of neighbors questioned why the state doesn’t provide stricter environmental oversight of Ingredion.
Ingredion, an Illinois-based specialty starch manufacturer, has operated a factory just southwest of downtown for more than 20 years. Neighbors have been complaining about the air quality for just about as long.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management held the meeting in May as part of the state’s review of the manufacturer’s five-year operating permit. It was also the community’s first chance to publicly discuss Ingredion’s future in the West Indianapolis neighborhood after the company’s February announcement that it would spend $100 million to expand and modernize its facility.
But state regulators said it’s too late for residents to get a say in the expansion because the comment period expired in February and there wasn’t enough public interest to warrant holding a meeting at the time. That left residents, many of whom live in the Old Southside, frustrated that their concerns wouldn’t be taken seriously…