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Public meeting held on permit for Fairfield’s HyCast Foundry
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
FAIRFIELD – A local environmental group is urging the Iowa DNR not to renew an operating permit for a Fairfield foundry.
HyCast LLC based in Cincinnati, Ohio, purchased the foundry formerly known as Faircast in the summer of 2024. The business is located at 905 W. Depot Ave., and operates under the name HyCast Foundry. The foundry has applied for a Draft Title V Air Operating Permit from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, a permit that lapsed under the prior ownership.
On Jan. 17, the Southeast Iowa Sierra Club organized a meeting at the Fairfield Public Library to discuss HyCast’s draft operating permit, and to invite members of the public to sign a petition opposing the renewal of the permit. According to the petition, the DNR’s permit is not strict enough, since compliance relies on “infrequent, short-duration stack testing and operating parameters.”
“These methods provide snapshots in time and cannot verify ongoing performance, operational variability, or intermittent conditions,” read the basis for the petition.
The Union sought comment from HyCast Foundry President Larry Doran and Wendell Hunsucker, a member of the ownership group, but neither had responded to the request by press time Wednesday.
Saturday’s meeting at the library featured three panelists who spoke about their knowledge of pollution, chemicals, and their effect on biological organisms. The three panelists were retired pollution control inspector Dr. Neil Carman, chemical engineer and filtration specialist Dr. Rahul Baradwaj, and molecular biologist and biosafety specialist Dr. John Fagan. Carman said he wants to see real emissions data from the foundry and not assumptions or estimations from the DNR and EPA. He said the company would need to install a number of sulfur dioxide monitors, a chemical that is hazardous if inhaled.
“There are a lot of holes in the permit application,” Carman said. “These are just numbers on paper. These numbers could change.”
Baradwaj spoke about the importance of sampling the air around the foundry to ensure emissions are kept in check, because the most harmful particles are those that are invisible to the eye. Fagan said residents need to signal to HyCast that they “mean business.”
After hearing from Grow Fairfield Executive Director Ed Malloy speak about the business, its roughly 30 employees, and the history of this permit, Fagan told the group, “If they are what Ed tells us they are, there’s not going to be a problem.” However, he did caution the group that some plants accept fines for pollution as the “cost of doing business” and then continue their same operations.
The DNR will hold a virtual public hearing on the permit from 7-9 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 29. It is also accepting comments about the permit until Feb. 2. The DNR official in charge of its air quality bureau is Zane Peters, who can be reached at 515-808-0458 and zane.peters@dnr.iowa.gov.
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
