Tag Archives: Environmental Protection Agency

‘if Mrs. Noll and any of her “experts” would actually meet with us’

Since the appended message was sent to a publicly elected board chartered by the state of Georgia, that makes it subject to Georgia’s open records law, so I am publishing it here.

-jsq

From: Brad Lofton
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 12:52 PM
To: Karen Ruff Noll, [and Valdosta Board of Education members]
Cc: Allan Ricketts; gkbielmyer@valdosta.edu; bergstrm@valdosta.edu
Subject: Re: Thank you to the Valdosta Board of Education

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen:

We were honored last night to provide you an update on a project that enjoys so much support from environmental groups all across America, and we are thankful for your invitation and partnership. Mrs. Noll won’t admit that no governmental group or environmental group in this country that is charged with setting environmental policy is opposed to our project. Not one. In fact, they collectively point to biomass as the way forward for our country, where nearly 45 percent of our existing renewable energy portfolio is biomass. We were prepared last night to go into specific details regarding the air permit and provide the actual facts for you as opposed to the continued misinformation you are receiving from this core group. We ran out of time and apologize for the length. Please let us know when and where we can have that discussion. Our plant will be carbon neutral, with a mercury level that is so low it’s considered statistically insignificant by EPD. There is a dramatic difference between what the state and federal law allows under a statutory air permit and what our plant actually produces. This group is stating the “permitted” allowances despite the fact that the actual emissions are a very small fraction of that. Again, if Mrs. Noll and any of her “experts” would actually meet with us, we would explain that.

Rest assured that this is a safe, green, renewable energy plant

that has been vetted by scores of environmentalists, all the major universities in Georgia (including Dr. Tom Manning, a biomass researcher at VSU), and approved by every level of government. If Mrs. Noll has further concerns, I would recommend her talking to President Obama, the U.S. Dept of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the state EPD, the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Federation, the state of Georgia’s Center of Innovation for Renewable Energy, GA Tech, UGA, the Valdosta Daily Times (who support us), and scores of others who support us.

We will not participate in a back and forth with this group. We’ll be happy to meet with any of you in person to provide additional information and facts. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but not the facts. Thanks so much for what each of you do for our community, and it’s an honor to serve you.

Regards,

Brad

Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Verizon

Europe has clean incinerators; why can’t we?

Elisabeth Rosenthal write in the NY Times about Europe Finds Clean Energy in Trash, but U.S. Lags:
Far cleaner than conventional incinerators, this new type of plant converts local trash into heat and electricity. Dozens of filters catch pollutants, from mercury to dioxin, that would have emerged from its smokestack only a decade ago.
Here’s the catch:
Denmark now has 29 such plants, serving 98 municipalities in a country of 5.5 million people, and 10 more are planned or under construction. Across Europe, there are about 400 plants, with Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands leading the pack in expanding them and building new ones.

By contrast, no new waste-to-energy plants are being planned or built in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency says — even though the federal government and 24 states now classify waste that is burned this way for energy as a renewable fuel, in many cases eligible for subsidies. There are only 87 trash-burning power plants in the United States, a country of more than 300 million people, and almost all were built at least 15 years ago.

That means the biomass plant proposed for Valdosta is not that kind of clean incinerator.

Biggest polluters in Lowndes County

The New York Times provides an interactive map of water polluters. According to that map, derived from Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) data mostly from 2004 through 2007, the biggest offenders in Lowndes County by number of violations are:
62 Moody Air Force Base
42 Arizona Chemical Company
37 Georgia Sheriffs’ Boys Ranch
These are all way ahead of Hahira’s notorious sewer system (supposed to be fixed now) and Valdosta’s Mud Creek WPCP (supposed to be being fixed now), both with 11 violations. Moody is not surprising, due to sheer size, although disappointing. The one that surprises me is the Boys Ranch.

Of course, number of violations is just one measure, but it is an interesting one.