DEMONSTRATION AT DNR IN OLYMPIA 2/16/11

Submitted to Shelton Blog by Duff Badgley Mason County Progressive

GOLDMARK “CEASE AND DESIST” PROTEST

JOIN US 3PM WEDNESDAY, FEB. 16 AT DNR IN OLYMPIA

Join Earth Cop—in uniform!—at DNR as we serve Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark with a CEASE AND DESIST ORDER compelling him to STOP ALL STATE BIOMASS PROJECTS. We’ll have banners, signs, flyers, an electric bullhorn and lots of fellow activists. We’ll mass outside the main entrance to DNR at 11th and Washington Sts. in downtown Olympia. Then we’ll deliver the CEASE AND DESIST ORDER to Goldmark inside.

Earth Cop is on loan to us from acclaimed attorney Meg Sheehan from Cambridge, MA. Thank you, Meg!!

Goldmark is pushing his jet-fuel-from-our-forests project plus biomass incinerators that threaten our health and our forests and increase CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, exacerbating global warming. Citizens across the state are demanding a STATEWIDE MORATORIUM ON BIOMASS PROJECTS like Thurston County imposed last year.

A February 8 Seattle Times OP-ED accused Goldmark of promoting biomass policies that “amount to a war on our forests, our climate, and our lives.”
http://www.theolympian.com/2011/02/07/1535301/thurston-commissioners-lauded.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2014157806_guest08badgley.html

The February 16 protest comes as three internationally acclaimed climate scientists have debunked pro-biomass burning policies by Washington Governor Gregoire and Commissioner Goldmark in a letter to state legislators on February 2 saying, "simply declaring biomass power to be carbon neutral does not make it so."
http://nobiomassburning.org/docs/Harmon_Searchinger_Moomaw%20Letter_2-3-11.pdf
http://www.nobiomassburn.org

Scientists Mark Harmon, Timothy Searchinger and William Moomaw wrote that Washington State policy "makes it likely that greenhouse gas emissions will increase for many years where biomass replaces or displaces fossil fuels" and "biomass burning emits 150 % the carbon dioxide of coal and 300-400 % the carbon dioxide of natural gas..."

The scientists’ February 2 letter states: “…the number and scale of biomass facilities proposed in Washington strongly suggests that new trees will have to be cut to provide fuel for these plants…” There are at least 20 biomass incinerators existing or planned for the state.

Biomass combustion emits more than twice as much highly toxic particulate matter as coal combustion, and five to 13 times more than natural-gas combustion, according to studies accepted by the EPA.

This kind of exposure to emissions has been linked by the American Lung Association to a lethal brew of diseases and conditions: asthma in children, cancer, cardiopulmonary diseases including heart attacks, strokes, premature death, increased ER visits and hospital admissions, birth defects, and abnormal lung development.

Public outcry against biomass incinerators promoted by Goldmark and the biomass/timber industry is grabbing headlines in Mason, Thurston, Jefferson and Clallam Counties.
http://www.theolympian.com/2011/02/07/1535301/thurston-commissioners-lauded.html
http://www.theolympian.com/2010/04/27/1219841/mason-county-biomass-plant-opposition.html
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20101007/NEWS/310079995/coalition-appeals-challenges-nippon-biomass-approvals

Appeals have been filed by citizen groups to stop 3 biomass incinerators proposed for the Olympic Peninsula — one of which is a "pilot project" in Port Angeles selected by Goldmark to showcase so-called "green energy."

Another biomass project pushed by Goldmark is the biomass plant slated for the campus of Evergreen State College in Olympia. This project has been stymied by the citizen-driven Thurston County moratorium on biomass plants in the County.

In September, 2010, Goldmark and Governor Gregoire sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson arguing that biomass sources of greenhouse gas pollution in Washington should be exempt from federal GHG regulations in the Clean Air Act. The letter from Moomaw, Searchinger and Harmon exposes the Gregoire and Goldmark proposal as being based on “assumptions” that “disregard” climate science.

CONTACTS:

Pat Rasmussen: 509-669-1549; patr@crcwnet.com;
Duff Badgley: 206-283-0621; duff@nobiomassburn.org