Submitted to Shelton Blog by Katherine Price
Great news, fellow air-breathers!
In today's mail is a document titled "Determination of Significance and Request for Comments on Scope of EIS Adage Mason LLC." We now have a twenty (20) day window for comment: "Written comments on the scope of the EIS ... can be submitted... and must be received by November 19, 2010."
The document states in part:
"EIS Required. Mason County, acting as lead agency, has determined this proposal is likely to have a significant adverse impact on the environment. An environmental impact statement (EIS) is required..."
The document goes on to state:
"Mason County has identified the following areas for discussion in the EIS: Air quality, including odor; water quality; wildlife and wildlife habitat; impacts to residential areas and parks from construction and use of the relocated access road; noise; transportation impacts on existing public uses from added truck and employees vehicle traffic on access routes, impacts from fire, explosion, or accidental release of chemicals." And, lastly, "Other areas that may be determined in the scoping process."
That last item is where we come in.
If they missed a point that we have been hammering home (and I don't think they did!), we need to be sure it is included in the scoping process.
We all need to put on our thinking caps and start drafting those letters to:
Barbara A. Adkins, AICP
Mason County Department of Community Development
411 North 5th Street
Shelton, WA 98584
I think we should all send and/or deliver flowers to Barbara Adkins on Monday, but that might make her look partisan... then again, she might be a fellow-air breather!
Keep it light...
Link to Complete Document
Good post by Katherine.
ReplyDeleteHowever, we would caution readers not to become complacent and assume that the County has switched positions through their requirement of an EIS.... One Major Concern is that MCDCD has defined ADAGE as an "Energy Recovery Facility" which by state and federal laws opens the door for ADAGE to burn Solid Wastes as fuel...Additionally, in para #1 of the attached document by MCDCD, ADAGE states that clean woody biomass will be the "Primary" source of fuel. No where does ADAGE address the "SECONDARY" fuel that will be used when clean woody biomass is not readily available!!! However, if not corrected in the Scope of Work, ADAGE as an "Energy Recovery Facility" can legally burn garbage, tires and so forth as noted by MCDCD. We all need to read carefully the 9_10_10 and the 10_28_10 MCDCD documents for other omissions and get our letters to Barbara Adkins way ahead of the November 19th deadline.
Maybe we could have some workshops where we could discuss and write letters together. We could have contact information available and mail everything at once. Just an idea. Unfortunately I don't have the time to put together something like this, but maybe another fellow "air-breather" is looking for a new project. : )
ReplyDeleteExcellent points; thanks JoC!
ReplyDeleteHere are the elements I will cover in my EIS ( environment impact statement ) letters and
ReplyDeletee-mails
Know your enemy. Read their propaganda material like the attached. I am not a scientist or an expert on environmental issues, but I have enough education and experience to see the bogus aspect of a presentation.
Common sense you would think will prevail in the end, but their motive is money making.
The time and place aspect of their biomass carbon cycle is the flaw in their theory.
The flaws in their arguments are in my opinion:
(1) They say on this burning bio-mass website that the pollution (which they don't call pollution) would be released naturally due to forest fires and decay.
Doesn't the decaying matter provide necessary nutrients to the forest for its renewal?Unless man made, forest fires are a natural occurring phenomenon.
2) The time it takes to replace the forest (hundreds of years).
(3) The place the wood is burned (incinerators in populated areas). Instead it pollutes the air near populated areas through a process that is human made and not a natural process (which is not out in the forest and dispersed through a longer time span).
(4)The fossil fuel utilized to transport the bio-mass to the incinerators is in itself inefficient and should have eliminated the concept as a not being ecologically friendly and compatible.
How much of a carbon footprint will these vehicles leave?
(5)Even they admit that the "technology is old." So too is the internal combustion engine that we are trying to replace with other power sources and modes of transportation that don’t pollute the environment.
(6) Tactics like using obscure terminology to baffle as part of their propaganda is disconcerting. The use of terminology like biogenic and non-biogenic to describe carbon emissions into the atmosphere to try to make it sound like one form is less polluting and preferred over the other.
http://www.wfpa.org/pages/biomasspolicy.html?gclid=CL7O_M_J_aQCFREPbAod_E9Ghg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint
Oh, excellent! Thank you, Claude.
ReplyDeleteWe have sent our letter to Barbara Adkins today, Nov 1st, and did it "return receipt requested" so that we can document that such was actually received by their office. We suggest that all correspondence to her office be so done for documentation purposes. It cost us $5.00 -- well worth the documentation that may be needed later!
ReplyDelete