TERRE HAUTE — Instead of becoming part of the Vigo County Health Department, a nearly dismantled Vigo County Air Pollution Control Department will report to the Vigo County Board of Commissioners.

The county’s Board of Health in November voted to incorporate Air Pollution Control into a division of the county health department. The board’s vote included a proposal to hire two inspectors and an administrative assistant, which would have required a salary restructuring.

The pollution department now is to move into vacant offices near the commissioner’s office in the Vigo County Annex at First and Oak streets, said Commissioner Paul Mason.

“We didn’t want to overburden the health department,” Mason said Tuesday, after appearing before a personnel committee of the Vigo County Council.

Commissioners last month voted 2-0 to place the department under the Board of Commissioners. Commissioner Judith Anderson was on vacation at the time of the vote.

Mason said the Air Pollution Control Department “will have to keep track of their duties each day and turn that into us as a monthly report to see what they have done.”

The department’s executive director, George Needham, has retired effective Jan. 1, Mason said.

Mason and Commissioner Mike Ciolli appeared before a County Council committee asking for approval to move forward with the sale of the pollution department’s building at the corner of Third and Ohio streets in Terre Haute. The sale would generate about $300,000, which commissioners sought to have set aside for salaries. Commissioners have obtained two appraisals for the building, one at $319,000 and a second at $286,000.

In addition, Mason said the Air Pollution department has $178,000 remaining in its accounts to help with salary costs and office expenses.

After the meeting, Mason said that when the money from the sale of the building is expended, “then they [Air Pollution Control Department] are gone, unless the County Council takes action” to maintain the department.

Mason said the state also could decide in the future to return to county-contracted departments, as Vigo County had operated until March 31, 2009 when the Indiana Department of Environmental Management ended a contract with the county.

IDEM’s move made the state responsible for writing all new or modified air pollution permits under Title V of the U.S. Clean Air Act, which took effect in 1995.

Commissioners had sought ways to fund the county department, but decided not to adopt a revised county ordinance that would have placed new local fees on air pollution sources, a move opposed during a public hearing in April 2009 by several businesses and the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce.

A restructured Air Pollution Control department is to contain three employees. That includes two inspectors, each paid an annual salary of $36,301, and one office manager, at an annual salary of $26,974.

“I don’t know what they can do to keep three people busy,” County Councilman Brad Anderson said during the personnel committee meeting, which included Councilmen Darrick Scott, D-2nd, and Tim Curley, D-1st.

Mason said, “We think they are a value to the community as far as dust control, burning control and asbestos removal.”

Ciolli added the county still has its own air pollution control ordinance and can respond more quickly than the state to such issues.

Contacted after the meeting, Dr. Enrico Garcia, county health commissioner, said the health department remains available for assistance with the air pollution department. “We can still put that in our environmental division if commissioners decide sometime in the future,” Garcia said.

The three council members supported the idea of selling the Third Street building, but said a special projects committee is handling that issue. If approved by that committee, the full County Council can vote to sell the building. That issue is expected to go before the full council at its Feb. 19 meeting, Scott said.

Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.