YOUNGSTOWN — A citizens group opposed to SOBE Thermal Energy Systems LLC’s proposal to convert rubber tire chips into synthetic gas at its Youngstown facility is urging the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to rescind the permit it granted the business.

About 15 people attended a Friday rally hosted by SOBE Concerned Citizens to highlight the one-year anniversary of the EPA’s Feb. 14, 2024, decision at a rally outside Dorothy Day House at 620 Belmont Ave., less than half a mile from SOBE’s location at 205 North Ave.

The group stated: “It is unacceptable that the Ohio EPA, charged with environmental protection in our state, would champion a polluter’s desire for profit over the people’s best interest. The citizens of Youngstown are calling for the Ohio EPA to rescind the air pollution permit to SOBE.”

Lynn Anderson, a SOBE Concerned Citizens member, said, “The Ohio EPA issued a potentially damaging and dangerous 10-year air pollution permit to SOBE.”

Youngstown City Council on Nov. 20 approved a second one-year moratorium on the process SOBE plans to use at its plant, near downtown. Council members say the process is dangerous, untested and harmful to the environment.

They also said they don’t plan to ever lift the moratorium that was initially passed Dec. 20, 2023.

SOBE issued a statement after Youngstown’s initial moratorium saying it respected the city’s decision. It hasn’t commented on the second moratorium.

Based on correspondence with the Ohio EPA, SOBE is still moving ahead, albeit slowly, with its plans to use pyrolysis — which is the gasification or combustion of tires, chipped tires, plastics and electronic waste into synthetic gas.

David Ferro, SOBE’s CEO, has said the company plans to only use shredded tires and it would be “very clean with zero hazardous waste and zero hazardous emissions.”

The gas would be used for steam energy for downtown businesses as well as sold to companies for other purposes.

The Ohio EPA issued an “air permit to install and operate” to SOBE on Feb. 14, 2024, to shred tires that would be converted into gas at its Youngstown plant over numerous objections from city officials and residents. SOBE applied for the permit in September 2022.

City officials repeatedly have said the project needs approval from Youngstown for a zoning change to move forward, and they oppose that.

Anderson said SOBE is located in a mixed-use community zone that doesn’t permit them to expand into industrial operations.

Opponents of the project have said the synthetic gas is toxic and a highly explosive hazardous material and that air emissions would threaten public health. Nearly 100 people attended an Aug. 10, 2023, public hearing to express opposition to the EPA granting the permit to SOBE.

The EPA stated Feb. 14, 2024, that it would allow SOBE to install a “thermolyzer unit to process tire chips. The unit will produce a synthetic gas that would serve as a supplemental fuel in two existing natural gas-fire boilers that are already installed, operated and permitted. The permit does meet the applicable Ohio environmental rules and regulations so Ohio EPA is obligated to issue a permit.”

John Mooney, director of the federal EPA’s air and radiation division for the region that includes Ohio, sent a Sept. 11, 2023, letter to the state EPA writing the federal agency “determined that the draft permitting action raises potential environmental justice concerns,” and that he urged the state to not grant the permit.

“The introduction of a thermolyzer within a residential and downtown setting stands fundamentally at odds with both the prevailing zoning laws and the principles of environmental justice,” Mooney wrote.

SOBE has more than 40 heating and cooling customers in the downtown area as well as Youngstown State University.

Based in Dublin, Ohio, SOBE acquired the former Youngstown Thermal LLC and Youngstown Thermal Cooling LLC in November 2021 for $250,000. The company had managed the facility for about two years prior.

Before taking over, Youngstown Thermal had numerous problems for years operating its cooling system – leaving the handful of downtown businesses that used it without air conditioning during the summer.

Youngstown Thermal was placed into receivership in 2017 after the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio was informed by the company’s former CEO that the business had financial struggles that could have caused an energy crisis downtown. Youngstown Thermal couldn’t ensure adequate service to its customers and was in danger of insolvency when the PUCO stepped in.

Youngstown Thermal is the oldest district heating and cooling system in the country, having begun operations in 1895. It was designed to generate and distribute steam to heat downtown businesses using coal as its main source of fuel.