There’s a lot of ground to cover when it comes to seeing everything at SunCoke Energy’s coke plant in Middletown.

Ten members of the company's Middletown Community Advisory Panel found that out firsthand when they visited the 325-acre site for three hours late Monday afternoon.

Donning coveralls, protective eye goggles, work boots and heat-resistant gloves, the panel members saw everything from where the coal is delivered by train to the ovens that operate at nearly 2,400 degrees which convert the coal into metallurgical coke. The plant supplies AK Steel with 550,000 tons of coke each year.

The tour also showed panels members heat recovery steam generators for electricity and a state-of-the-art control room operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Fred Gibson, a member of the Highlands Historical District said the tour illustrated how almost everything the company has done at the plant is beyond what normally would be expected.

“It looked like they have been overly cautious in their planning,” Gibson said. “That probably had to do with the fact that they knew they were going to be having a number of people fighting this. I think from the get-go they realized they couldn’t just be under the radar.”

Lisa Frye, president of SunCoke Watch, said she appreciated the opportunity to tour the site. “It’s always better to have more information than less,” she said. “They do talk about a lot of technical terms (during CAP meetings) and although I’ve learned a tremendous amount over the past four years, it’s still helpful to be out there and see the different parts of the facility.”

While she is thankful that the company arranged for the tour, Frye said she still opposed the idea of such a facility being near a school, nursing home and residential area.

“There’s no amount of time that will justify the fact that they were legally allowed by the EPA to build that facility,” Frye said. “I’ll still contend that that plant should never have been put there.”

Anedra Million, a Middletown School District educator, said she already was aware of how the plant functioned but the tour brought some clarity to the various places that are discussed during monthly panel meetings.

“It’s kind of hard for me visualize some of those images,” she said. “I have to see it in person to understand.”

Million said she found the employees the panel encountered during the tour to be “very thorough, knowledgeable and welcoming.”