Residents: Plant worse than a Wal-Mart

[Mugu]

By Matt Assad | Of The Morning Call

Walt Neidlinger spent years trying to keep a Wal-Mart-anchored shopping complex from being built near his Wind Gap home.

The traffic would have been suffocating for their little community, neighbors argued, so when the massive retailer and its partners packed up their plans and left Plainfield Township last year, Neidlinger was ecstatic. He figured he'd wait for the next plan to come along and remembers thinking, ''What could be worse than Wal-Mart?''

Over the past year, Neidlinger says, he's gotten an answer: RPM Recycling -- the metal-shredding plant on the same land -- causes daily noise that sounds like a freight train rumbling down the street, and frequent explosions that shake his walls.

Last week, a fire at the recycling plant inflamed growing tensions between residents, who say the plant has ruined their neighborhood, and RPM co-owner Nolan A. Perin, who says he's spent $200,000 to help calm the noise and wonders why he's being criticized for bringing industry to an industrial park.

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