Biomass delay sought
Protest: Crowd gathers again at Olympic Region Clean Air Agency to oppose projects
JOHN DODGE; Staff writer | • Published October 07, 2010
OLYMPIA - For the second time in five weeks, biomass project opponents gathered outside the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency in Olympia, urging to no avail that the agency place a moratorium on permits for new wood waste-burning projects.
The 27 protesters Wednesday included senior citizens from Mason County, home to two controversial projects, and several youthful, masked members of Olympia Rising Tide, a climate-activist group.
The demonstrators chanted through a megaphone, held signs and delivered a letter to ORCAA Executive Director Fran McNair, calling on the agency to take a stand against biomass plants.
“The role of ORCAA should be to protect the people who reside in the Northwest from environmental degradation,” the letter states.
Specifically, the anti-biomass group wants a moratorium on biomass incinerators, pending results of medical research into the health effects of microscopic soot released into the air from these plants. They also want public hearings and scientific debate on the claim that biomass plants are carbon-neutral.
McNair had just brief contact with two demonstrators inside the agency office, which closed at 4:30 p.m., about 30 minutes after the protesters arrived outside.
“I’m not going to talk to the group,” she said earlier in the day.
One of the reasons is the fact that McNair will serve as the hearings officer when the agency conducts a public hearing on the permit Adage needs to build a wood-burning power plant in Mason County.
ORCAA engineers are reviewing the Adage application and have not issued a preliminary determination of whether the plant can meet state and federal requirements for air emissions.
“We’re still waiting for more information from Adage,” McNair said.
“We’re here now because it’s getting close to permit time,” said Christine Armond, a Mason County resident opposed to the Adage project.
The plant will have to comply with the requirements of the federal Clean Air Act, which sets limits on how much pollution a plant can release, limits designed to protect human health and the environment, McNair said.
The biomass foes staged a similar protest Sept. 1 outside the ORCAA office.
Four of the five biomass plants proposed on the Olympic Peninsula in Mason, Thurston, Jefferson and Clallam counties need operating permits from ORCAA, Seattle-based biomass opponent Duff Badgley said.
“That’s why we’re here,” he said.
The biggest project is the $250 million Adage plant near Shelton, which would burn more than 600,000 tons of wood debris per year and generate enough electricity to serve about 40,000 homes. It would provide some 750 direct and indirect jobs during a 2.5-year construction period and 200 direct and indirect jobs during plant operation.
It also would release into the air annually about 550,000 tons of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, along with hundreds of tons of air pollutants linked to environmental and health problems such as smog, acid rain and heart and respiratory problems.
“Biomass is not a solution to climate change,” said Jo Lillian of Olympia Rising Tide.
McNair said the front-door locks to the agency’s office and two other businesses in the same building were glued shut when employees arrived to work Wednesday morning. They notified police but were able to enter the office through back doors that weren’t vandalized.
Armond said the Adage project opponents are not law-breakers.
“We’re mostly families, children and gray-haired people,” she said.
One Olympia police officer monitored the protest Wednesday, which moved to a sidewalk on Harrison Avenue after the ORCAA office closed.
John Dodge: 360-754-5444 jdodge@theolympian.com
Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/2010/10/07/1395305/biomass-delay sought.html#ixzz11hy2koYz
They are passing out free copies of the daily zero at Safeway, go grab one. I won't buy that rag but I'll take a free copy when my picture is in it.. :)
ReplyDelete10/7 LETTER to John Dodge,"The Olympian"
ReplyDeleteDear John,
HEARTfelt thanks to YOU from my husband John & myself,
& from so many, many others throughout our beautiful state!!!
You have dramatically lifted the spirits of hundreds of people who have been working SO diligently for SO many months to prevent, or at least slow down the WA biomass incinerator invasion (from demonstrations, letter writing, phone calls, lawsuits, to fundraising, etc.).
But, even more importantly, by increasing the PUBLIC
VISIBILITY of these issues, you have made them MUCH
MORE difficult to be ignored by the biomass proponents.
Conscientious journalism is democracy in action in one
of its highest forms!!!
KUDOS!!!
I wish they had left out that total BS about the number of jobs; it makes the "senior citizens" in Mason County look like kooks!
ReplyDeleteWe are not against jobs; and those numbers are made up; but we are totally opposed to being poisoned so that our local elected officials can get their payoffs from their corporate masters if this dragon ever goes online!
YESsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
ReplyDeleteWe are writing him about the touted "jobs".
I think as many of us as possible should
DO the same!!!
Otherwise, article really was okay...
It certainly will make biomass proponents
SQUIRM in anguish!!!