NIPPON ORCAA AIR PERMIT APPEAL FILED

NIPPON AND ORCAA COLLUDE
TO LOWER POLLUTION NUMBERS
APPEAL FILED AGAINST AIR PERMIT

Submitted to Shelton Blog by Duff Badgley Mason County Progressive

July 21, 2011—Amid charges that Nippon and its regional permitting agency colluded to grossly understate toxic pollution from the new Nippon biomass project, No Biomass Burn today appealed the decision by the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency (ORCAA) to issue Nippon a permit for the project. It was joined by six other environmental groups concerned about the serious potential health impacts of the project, now under construction.

No Biomass Burn is investigating to see if criminal or civil charges could apply against Nippon and ORCAA.

One toxic pollutant from Nippon’s project would be emitted at rates nearly 90 times greater than ORCAA’s permit for Nippon shows, according to analysis conducted by a nationally renowned air quality engineer hired by the appellants. The air engineer performed a detailed analysis of Nippon’s air permit application and ORCAA’s actual permit issued on June 22, 2011, said Duff Badgley, president of No Biomass Burn.

For this toxic pollutant, ORCAA itself lowered pollution estimates to a fraction of what Nippon first submitted, the air quality engineer’s research shows. Nippon then further reduced the already lowered estimate, Badgley said the analysis shows.

“What Nippon and ORCAA have done is completely cynical and maybe criminal,” said Badgley.“They have worked in tandem to greatly understate the amount of toxic pollution the Nippon biomass project would emit. They are preparing to poison the people of the Port Angeles region and deny the public full knowledge of that poison.”

If allowed to stand, the drastically lower pollution estimates would let Nippon avoid more rigorous government regulations and more expensive and effective pollution controls.

“That’s their scheme,” Badgley said. “Maximum pollution for minimum cost. The public be damned.”

“We were shocked by how egregiously Nippon and ORCAA have ‘cooked’ their pollution numbers,” Badgley said. “Toxic pollutants from this biomass project would be emitted in much greater amounts, sometimes vastly greater amounts, than what Nippon and ORCAA claim.”

For another highly carcinogenic pollutant, ORCAA simply ignored the pollution amount submitted by Nippon and substituted an amount only a fraction of what had been first proposed by Nippon.

Badgley said another tactic Nippon and ORCAA used to achieve radically lower pollution estimates was to selectively omit reliable EPA pollution standards.

For still other toxic pollutants, Badgley said the appeal will reveal, ORCAA and Nippon provided no basis whatsoever for their toxic emissions estimates. This is called their “Ronald McDonald database”, Badgley said.

“Our appeal is intended to smoke them out”, Badgley said about Nippon and ORCAA. “Both Nippon and ORCAA subscribe to an alternate reality created by the Washington timber industry—where burning wood is always good. But the public deserves the truth.”

For more information, contact:
Duff Badgley
No Biomass Burn
206-283-0621
duff@nobiomassburn.org
www.nobiomassburn.org

REPORTERS:

Peninsula Daily News (Port Angeles) Reporter Tom Callis
Phone: 360-417-3532
Email: tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com

The Daily News City (Longview) Editor Andre Stepankowsky
Phone: 360-577-2520
Email: andre@tdn.com

Link to article: "Three groups appeal Longview Fibre's biomass permit"
http://tdn.com/news/local/article_fa855018-a904-11e0-a1ba-001cc4c03286.html