Denyvetta Davis is in the market for some peace.
“Suppose you’re getting ready for work, or you’re in bed, or you’re cooking, or you’re in the shower, or you’re just sitting reading or watching TV, and then all of the sudden you hear this loud noise and your windows shake,” said Davis, a longtime resident of the JFK neighborhood in northeast OKC.
Even with all her doors and windows shut, Davis has found no way to escape the explosions caused by two scrapyards in the area: Derichebourg Recycling and Standard Iron and Metal. Davis, who serves as president of the Northeast OKC Neighborhood Coalition, said some neighbors have reported cracks in their walls and ceilings, and sometimes there are fires that lower air quality in that part of the city.
“One of the issues is the explosion that comes from the recycling plants on Reno (Avenue),” Davis said. “When they put those cars through their equipment and gas is left in the tank or the airbag is still in there, then it causes an explosion, and that’s what impacts our neighborhood.”
A 2018 report from the JFK Neighborhood Association contains explosion logs from Derichebourg Recycling. At the time, a representative from Derichebourg told the OKC City Council the explosions typically come from undetected propane tanks. While the vast majority of reported explosions came from the Derichebourg site, some came from Standard Iron and Metal. Those details are consistent with reporting from The Oklahoman, which found in 2021 investigation that the majority of explosions came from the Derichebourg site.
Now, Standard Iron and Metal has applied to establish a new special permit for its site at 1501 E. Reno Ave., a situation that has Davis and others fearing more noise. While opponents know stopping the permit would not stop the explosions currently wracking their neighborhood, they are concerned that approval would give Standard free rein to make things worse. As the issue becomes a topic in the April 1 election for the OKC City Council’s open Ward 7 seat, it marks the latest chapter in a decades-long struggle pitting a neighborhood against a business that has operated at its site since 1951.
Standard Iron and Metal conducts recycling on 22 acres and is undergoing a change in ownership. According to its website, it handles an array of recyclable metals, including car bodies, old appliances, iron, rebar and electric motors. Late last year, the company applied for a special permit to operate as a scrap processor.
Attorney David Box represents the party that recently purchased the company. He told The Oklahoman last month the plant is not expanding from its existing footprint.
“My client is a buyer of the facility, and the desire is to put a special permit in place to take the place of what exists now,” Box said. “It’s not an additional facility, it’s simply a new buyer coming in, and right now Standard operates under a legally-nonconforming zoning classification. My client needs the ability to have it legally-conforming, so in order to do that, we have to go through the special permit process.”
The permit acknowledges that explosions are “possible,” and it outlines mitigation measures in place.
Derrick Scobey, pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in northeast OKC and an organizing opponent of the permit, said he understands that, even if the council denies the permit, explosions will continue.
“We’re not trying to shut it down,” he said. “We are realistic about that. But what we don’t want to have happen is for this special permit to get approved. We understand that if they don’t get their permit, the explosions aren’t going to stop. But what we don’t want to have happen is for it to be expanded. Now, we continue to hear people say, ‘We’re not expanding.’ Well, no, they haven’t said it, but the language in the permit will give them permission to do that without having to ask anyone about it down the road.”
Residents expected to speak out amid decades of frustration
While the OKC City Council had been set to consider the permit at its March 11 meeting, the item was delayed until Tuesday, March 25.
Scobey now lives outside the JFK neighborhood, but he grew up in the area, and the longtime organizer has heard from residents over the years about the problems created by the recycling operations.
“What affects my people affects me,” Scobey said.
Scobey said the scrapyards have been a part of life in the JFK neighborhood for as long as anyone can remember.
“When I was a little kid, we used to ‘bust copper,’ and we would take copper down there and sell it and make a little money because we were poor,” he said. “So, it’s been around forever.”
More recently, the activity in the area has earned more controversy than pocket money. Scobey helped rally the JFK neighborhood to speak at the March 11 OKC City Council meeting when the item was pushed to March 25.
“We know that the city council is the one that’s going to make the final decision, but we believe that the ownership and the attorney tried to push it off because they believed that we were going to show up in full numbers. And, they thought, ‘Well, if we push it out two weeks, then it’s going to die down. They won’t come to the same degree,'” Scobey said. “But they’re going to be in for a shock, because it’s not dying down. That’s just given us more time to mobilize.”
The scrapyards have been objects of derision for decades. Steve Lackmeyer and Addison Kliewer of The Oklahoman reported residents have complained to the city about both the Derichebourg and Standard sites since the early 1990s.
The frequent booms are yet another obstacle for the JFK neighborhood, which survived the often racist process of urban renewal more than 50 years ago. The late Rev. John Reed, who pastored at Fairview Missionary Baptist Church for more than 60 years until his death last year, explained in a 2012 interview with then-OKC planning director Russell Claus how the neighborhood changed in the 1960s.
“At that particular time, we had a small parking lot because most of our residents could walk to the church,” Reed said. “So, most Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, and at other times, you would see people, children, walking to church. And of course, in the late 1960s, urban renewal came in and moved all of the citizens out of that area. All of the homes around the church were torn down.”
Reed said he decided to keep Fairview in the JFK neighborhood.
“What was left was mostly churches and, of course, the churches started selling their land and buying land further up north,” Reed said. “Our church decided to stay. The reasoning being that I just sort of believed there would be some redevelopment.”
Reed was right. That redevelopment came decades later. Between 2004 and 2012, the year the interview was taped, over 100 residential units were constructed.
But Scobey said progress is stunted by industrial activity that he says suppresses property values.
“What nobody is talking about is the home value depreciation,” he said. “If you have a house that is $250,000, the buyer, if they know about the noise in the area, then they’re either not going to buy over there, or they’re going to be like, ‘No, I like it, but I don’t want to buy it for $250,000. I’ll offer to buy it at $200,000.'”
Ward 7 candidates sound off
The latest controversy with Standard Iron and Metal comes as OKC Ward 7 is set to elect a new councilman on April 1. While candidates Camal Pennington and John Pettis may not reach office in time to make an impact on the permit application, they believe the neighborhood has suffered enough.
During a debate earlier this month, both candidates spoke about the permit and the neighborhood. Pennington said he would like to see recycling businesses completely gone from the JFK neighborhood.
“I am adamantly opposed to this,” Pennington said of the permit. “And it’s an unfortunate thing. This facility has existed for a while and has been causing so much harm to the neighborhood. These are hardworking people that have bought their homes, and they’re raising families there. We want to make great places to live everywhere in Oklahoma City, and this application threatens that. I think it’s important that we be focused on a long-term solution, because even if the council votes this down, their operation is legally non-conforming. So my focus, if elected, will be on how we can get them to move to another site.”
Pettis, who previously served as the council member for OKC Ward 7, said he has been troubled by the lack of transparency around the permit application.
“When the applicant turned in their application in November, there should have been a community meeting to talk about the application on day one, not as it’s going through the city council. But, unfortunately, there were no community discussions. So let’s start there. It was back in 2013 when the neighbors from JFK came together, met in my office, and we together submitted an ordinance to limit the hours of operation. But there is still work to be done. I do agree that the steelyards and recycling plants on Reno (Avenue) need to be relocated. Before I left office, one of the things that was being done was to declare those operations a public nuisance, because they are a public nuisance.”
JFK neighborhood plight ‘an environmental justice issue’
Not far from the site where Standard Iron and Metal stands, the sprawling OKANA resort has just opened. While Bricktown’s glory has faded some, there is still plenty of other development in downtown OKC. The city’s approved $1 billion publicly-funded arena for the Thunder will one day occupy a part of the skyline.
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But in Davis’ view, and no doubt others’ in the JFK neighborhood, there is still room for progress on the east side.
“It’s an environmental justice issue,” Davis said. “We deserve to live in peace just like everybody else in Oklahoma City. We’re probably the closest neighborhood east of downtown, and not far from us across the river, we see great things that are happening. But no matter how many great things happen, if you have a neighborhood that is being devastated by an industry that’s been there for a long time and can do what they do, I mean, that’s not OK.”
Asked whether environmental justice — a movement that addresses disproportionately poor environmental protection in communities of color, among other aims — should be a consideration for the OKC City Council, Scobey said he agreed with Davis.
“We wouldn’t have this scrapyard in almost every other area of the city,” he said.
Davis plans on being one of those who speaks during the public comments of the city council meeting that could decide the fate of the requested permit. She’s spoken to the council numerous times before on this issue.
“On the 25th, it’s going to be the same thing we wanted on the 11th,” Davis said. “It’s that the city votes ‘No.’ I mean, they’re already doing whatever it is they do, and the new owner may want to do something different. We don’t know. So we want the council to vote ‘No.’
