SK hynix neighbors demand disaster plans in West Lafayette

Drumbeat continues from residents contesting a site picked for $3.87 billion semiconductor facility. Mayor suggests 'it would be good for (SK hynix) to present a comprehensive plan to the community'

• Thanks to sponsor Stuart & Branigin for continued support of the Based in Lafayette reporting project.

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• Support for this edition also comes from Purdue Musical Organizations, presenting the 92nd annual Purdue Christmas Show. The Christmas Show will shine Boilermaker bright with an all-student cast, festive music and dazzling performances. Tickets are now on sale for the Dec. 6-7 shows, where audiences of all ages will come together to celebrate the spirit of the holiday season at this timeless Purdue tradition. Get your tickets here.

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SK HYNIX NEIGHBORS PRESS FOR DISASTER PLANS IN WEST LAFAYETTE

Lining the walls of the West Lafayette City Council chambers Monday evening and dressed in clean room-looking coveralls pulled from a protest on the streets near the SK hynix semiconductor site less than a week earlier, residents showed they weren’t ready to give in on their campaign to get the council to reverse course on where to put the South Korean company’s $3.87 billion facility.

They held the same signs – marking the distance from the planned 340,000-square-foot high-bandwidth memory assembly facility to assorted neighborhoods, schools, day cares, a pair of proposed hospitals and the city’s John Dennis Wellness Center – they’d carried and strategically placed along Kalberer Road, Yeager Road, Salisbury Street and other points within a mile of the property.

(Photo: Dave Bangert)

Much of what they told the city council during the public comment portion at the end of the monthly meeting was familiar, similar to testimony presented during a seven-hour hearing leading up to a 6-3 vote in May and then in council meetings that followed, as well as in the allegations lodged in a pair of civil lawsuits challenging the decision, now working their way through Tippecanoe Circuit Court. (The next preliminary hearing in that case, with the lawsuits folded into one proceeding, is still nearly four weeks away, on Dec. 1.)

Here’s a look at the last two council meetings, including a BiL survey of city council members about whether they would, as residents were asking, reconsider their votes from May. (Spoiler alert: Council members weren’t budging at the time. They didn’t budge again Monday.)

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Survey: WL council members not wavering on SK hynix, as neighbors step up calls for new vote

SK hynix site work expected soon, as neighbors give WL council another earful

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The undercurrent Monday night, across nearly a dozen speakers still pressing for lists of chemicals SK hynix plans to use, environmental studies they contend should have been done before the city rezoning vote and questioning why Purdue Research Foundation recruited a semiconductor facility so close to neighborhoods: If something goes wrong, it’ll be on the head of the city, PRF and anyone else that approved the site.