Lake Forest neighbors voice displeasure on concrete plant being built nearby

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Hundreds of people packed the pews at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church for a meeting about a concrete plant that is being built in the Lake Forest neighborhood.

Emotions were high at the meeting Thursday night. Work on the concrete plant has already started, and as people at the meeting learned, they’re running out of ways to stop it.

”How are they going to tell us when the air quality has diminished,” one woman said at the meeting. “And your children are breathing this poison. And I want to say shame. Shame on all of you.”

People living in the neighborhood claim they weren’t notified that the plant was being built.

There are different tiers of people who are supposed to be contacted by these kinds of projects. First-tier is people who are across the street from the development site.

Ross Kowzan is in that tier.

“My wife and I are tier one, and nobody’s heard anything,” Kowzan said. “We didn’t get anything in the mail. Nobody that we’ve talked to that’s actually on that list, whether they’re tier one or tier two. Nobody got any mail.”

Ross lives in a house right across the street from the site. When asked after the meeting if he felt any better about the situation, he simply said no.

He feels they didn’t get a lot of answers.

“I understand that some of the people that are in the decision-making roles have to be very careful about what they say, we understand that,” Kowzan said. “But emotions were really, really high in there.”

One thing he does feel good about is the amount of people who showed up.

“Once they hear the process, that nobody knew, everything going on, people are really upset,” he said. “So the turnout was fantastic. I think we should be very excited about the turnout, and we just got to build on that momentum.”

The Air Pollution Control District is still putting together a permit for the site. Councilman Anthony Piagentini said at the meeting that he knows of one concrete plant that was shut down by the A-P-C-D.

Once the permit is finished, there will be another public meeting for comments. A meeting that a lot from the crowd at this meeting will also attend.

The community is still looking for ways to fight against the plant. They’re looking at legal action. Someone even suggested pooling money and buying the property.

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