Pittsburgh Army Corps of Engineers to hold hearing on proposed battery plant at Lordstown, Ohio

Plans to build a $2.3 billion electric battery assembly plant near General Motors Corp.’s shuttered automobile plant in Lordstown, Ohio, will be reviewed during a March 12 public hearing in Lordstown, which is about 75 miles from Pittsburgh.

General Motors is applying for approval on behalf of GigaPower LLC of South Korea, which wants to build a mass-production, battery-cell manufacturing plant for electric vehicles.

GM, which closed the Lordstown plant last year, is entering into a joint venture with GigaPower on the new plant. GM hopes to begin work at the new battery-making plant later this year.

The Lordstown plant closing cost about 1,600 jobs at that site, although many workers took other GM jobs. An investment group, backed by an electric truck maker in Cincinnati, bought the shuttered plant last year.

GM’s application for permission to have the factory built on its property will be available at 5 p.m. March 12 at the Lordstown High School auditorium. A public information session for statements and testimony will follow at 6 p.m.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Pittsburgh and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency will review the information from the public meeting.

Information gathered during this meeting will be considered while evaluating the application to the Corps of Engineers for the permit. The federal agency said it will grant GM the permit unless it is found to be against the public’s interest.

Statements made at the hearing, or to the Army Corps before the hearing, will be considered in the final determination. Any objections submitted before the hearing may be forwarded to the applicant for possible resolution before a decision is made.