Baum Environmental moving forward with its own tire shredding facility in NBR

quote:

---

Baum Environmental moving forward with its own tire shredding facility

LINK

Though the city-parish deal to purchase a tire shredder with federal grant money fell through last September, the environmental consulting firm that was planning to partner with the parish in operating the equipment is moving forward with plans to open its own tire shredding facility this spring.

Baum Environmental acquired a 9.5-acre site on Springfield Road off Highway 61 in late November that owner Diane Baum says is ideally suited for a tire shredder. The area is already zoned industrial and has on site a 100,000-square-foot warehouse with 40-foot ceilings, which will be large enough to house both the shredder and the waste tires awaiting processing.

“When I saw this spot, my eyes lit up,” Baum says. “It was perfect, beyond perfect.”

Baum has also applied for a waste tire processor permit from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and is hoping to receive it within 60 days. Once the permit comes through, she will purchase the $3.5 million shredder she has selected and begin operations.

Unlike the controversial plan with the city-parish that died last year, no federal funds will be used to purchase the tire shredder. Baum’s facility will be entirely privately operated, an offshoot of her environmental consulting firm.

Still, Baum says the facility will benefit the entire community because it will serve as a place where people can bring waste tires free of charge for processing. The firm will then sell the processed material to other environmental firms, which use it primarily for erosion control.

Baum Environmental will also be able to use the crumb rubber for its own projects, which will enable the firm to save money.

“Right now, I buy tire chips in a bag from Tennessee and bring them here,” Baum says. “Now, we’ll be able to use what we process so it’s a good deal for us.”

Baum had agreed to partner with the city-parish in early 2020 in the operation of a proposed tire shredder that, it was hoped, would reduce the local population of waste tires, which contribute to blight and serve as breeding pools of stagnant water for mosquito larvae. The parish Mosquito Abatement and Rodent Control district had received a grant to pay for the shredder from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But the deal fell apart, after city-parish leaders could not agree on an acceptable site for the facility and failed to spend the federal money within the required period of time.

---