Local Officials Travel to Circularity Center in Indiana
This feature was originally published by the Upson Beacon. See the feature here.
Upson County Emergency Management Agency Director Richard Hickmon and Rock Hill Volunteer Fire Department Chief Alan Yarbrough were among community leaders who traveled to Ashley, Ind. recently to visit the Brightmark Circularity Center facility.
The Upson Beacon sat with the two for an interview to discuss what was learned regarding emergency preparedness.
Hickmon stated he was going into the plant looking for signs of issues, and he recognized the plant was going to be in tip-top shape for the visit. However, he said he knew where ordinary people were not going to look, and those places were “spotless.”
Yarbrough agreed.
“I realize they knew we were coming, but they had the plant nice and clean, and they were running. Stuff is going to get dirty. I had my concerns. I’ve heard that it was going to stink like trash, and that was the first thing – we looked at each other when we got off the bus. Outside there was no smell, and there was no smell in the plant.”
Hickmon commented that it smelled like laundry detergent outside of the plant.
Regarding community concerns of what it may look like for Brightmark to ship in tons of plastic, Hickmon stated trash in the Indiana facility was sorted, cleaned, and bailed before entering the facility.
“It’s not like a trash truck backing up to the facility,” he said, adding he did not notice any smoke emanating from the plant.
The Ashley facility is in the coverage area of Ashley-Hudson Volunteer Fire Rescue. Brightmark having two centers serviced by volunteer fire departments marks the first similarity between Thomaston and Ashley. The second is that the nearest hazmat teams are upward of 45 minutes away.
Hickmon told The Beacon in the Aug. 13 story, entitled “Brightmark Arrival Raises Hazmat Preparedness Concerns,” he was not sure what was required to fight fires for the plant. He noted the answer became clear during the recent visit.
“They’re using an [Aqueous Film Forming Foam, or AFFF], which is known to cause some health issues, so they’re looking to change over to newer foams which we’ve already done. There’s some reassurance in knowing that the fire departments here are already on that foam. There’s also a two-day academy to cover these sorts of things.”
Yarbrough commented that Brightmark allowed him and other fire chiefs into the refineries to gain more information on how to handle a potentially hazardous situation. Yarbrough stated there had been four calls to the Ashley facility: two medical and two fires.
Although Brightmark has verbally agreed to help purchase equipment for firefighting, Hickmon and Yarbrough stated it was not discussed on this trip. Hickmon said the plant has hydrants located around it, connected to fire nozzles with 300-gallon foam tanks.
“All they have to do is turn the hydrant on and they are spraying foam,” he said. “Every hydrant had a monitor and foam tanks on them.”
Hickmon estimated the facility had about 3,600 gallons of foam on hand.
Hickmon said he was told the company shifted from plastics-to-fuel to plastics-to-plastic. The plastic-to-fuel option reportedly was not profitable as Brightmark expected, so it started selling oil back to plastics companies to turn back into plastics.
Yarbrough said his biggest takeaway was that many of the issues Brightmark poses are already present in Upson County. He referenced an existing local industry and added, “I guess I was looking to find something. ‘Oh, this don’t look good’. I just didn’t see it. The stuff I saw there, we’ve got here.”
Hickmon stated that the flammability of oils involved were reduced once they were placed into storage tanks and cooled. Moreover, both Hickmon and Yarbrough commented that Brightmark welcomed the local fire department to train on “numerous” occasions.
When asked what would happen if tanks were to spring a leak, Hickmon commented that the area would be “contained.”
“They engineer that site to contain leaks,” he said.
Yarbrough noticed a cornfield surrounded the plant on three sides and reasoned that if there was a possibility of the oil from the facility getting into the soil outside, it was unlikely that the plant would be allowed by Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
“I can say there were a lot of safety measures up there,” said Yarbrough.
Hickmon went into detail regarding some of the plant’s fire defense mechanisms.
“They have flame eyes watching the process, smoke sniffers throughout the process, handheld fire extinguishers everywhere, and employees are wearing four-gas monitors. They said that wasn’t just to ensure the employees’ safety, but to help identify leaks quicker. They’ve invested a lot of money in safety.”
On May 14, 2021, the plant suffered a large fire, which has been well documented. Hickmon and Yarbrough did not shy away from the topic.
“We asked about the fire of course, and there’s pictures of it. It was a process they have changed. Someone left a plug loose, but they put a process in place to make sure that doesn’t happen again. That case was human error,” said Hickmon.
Yarbrough said Rock Hill VFD is “fairly used to handling these kinds of things.”
“There is always a chance something is different that we have to train for,” he continued. “We constantly train on stuff, do building inspections, and if there’s changes, we can see it to know what’s been changed, and we’ve got a good reputation with the industry out there. [Existing industries] never have a problem if we want to come in and do a tour of the building or whatever. I believe it will be the same way with Brightmark.”
Still, Yarbrough and Hickmon agreed their concerns were not totally satisfied, though they have been eased.
Yarbrough explained, “As with any industry, something could happen. I have my concerns about everything that’s out there already… Anytime there’s change, we don’t like change. I think that with our training, and with the help of us having automatic aid agreement with all county fire departments, we’ll have people there quick.”
He added Lamar County Fire Department also has a mutual aid agreement to help with larger issues, and Hickmon noted statewide EMA agreements.
“All Alan has to do is call and say, ‘I need this’, and we’ll get it on the way,” said Hickmon.
But accidents are possible, and The Beacon pressed further about what would happen should a major incident occur.
Hickmon commented, “We have to look at evacuation, and the size of the disaster will determine the evacuation area… I don’t even know, worst case scenario, how big it would be. (There are) lots of variations. We’d have contacts here from the National Weather Service watching humidity, dew points, and wind. (We would) make decisions on what’s best for the community and offer any kind of support and resources we could to anybody who’s displaced.”
Yarbrough responded, “A lot of the answer to that question is going to depend on weather. If it’s raining and the winds blowing, that’s going to mean possibly a worse situation. But if it’s a sunny day with no wind, that’s going to cut back on the situation because if it’s a vapor issue, it’s not going to travel as far.”
Both agreed more discussion is needed regarding disaster scenarios. Yarbrough and Hickmon both expressed plans to be involved in the design and engineering stages, as well as Thomaston Fire Chief Jeremy Walker.
“The more eyes, the better it will be,” Yarbrough explained.
Brightmark’s Upson facility is stalled in the permitting process, a fact not lost upon both Hickmon and Yarbrough.
“If and when the air permit goes through, after that, that’s when a lot more discussion will start happening… until they get all their permits, you don’t even know for sure if they’re going to be coming,” Yarbrough said.
Hickmon agreed that will be when conversations would begin in earnest.
“As Alan said, without those permits, everything stops,” he added.
The state permitting process just completed public participation, though as of press time, no date for a final determination has been set.
Hickmon and Yarbrough commented that their own personal feelings on the plant do not factor into the conversation.
“It doesn’t matter if we are for or against the facility. We have to be prepared. My opinion doesn’t really matter,” Hickmon said.
“We’re not the ones to sign the paperwork to say if they’re going to come or not. Our job is to prepare,” Yarbrough said.
Both considered the topic of environmental protection and air quality issues that have plagued the Ashley plant. Hickmon said he was not involved in that regard, and it is “not in his wheelhouse.
“I know that’s a concern for a lot of people, but that’s not something we have any control in. We’re going to have to lean on the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.”
He added EPD has been stringent on other facilities, including fines and even shutting plants down for not meeting standards.
Yarbrough reaffirmed that hazmat materials were already traveling through Upson County.
“I’m sure there’s some stuff worse than Brightmark traveling up and down these roads.”
Hickmon referenced radioactive shipments from nuclear sites, and Yarbrough referenced a medical vehicle that crashed on Highway 74 and caused the highway to close for two days in December 2024, when a truck carrying Technetium-99M, a radioactive isotope used in medical imaging, crashed in Monroe County, according to a story from 13-WMAZ of Macon.
Hickmon stated the company has not seen pushbacks from residents in Ashley like they have experienced in Thomaston.
