WHAT IS THERE TO FEAR?

A bad air day downtown Shelton, WA USA

There Has Never Been an ORCAA Air Monitor Downtown

Submitted to Shelton Blog by John Cox Mason County Progressive

I was reading the Mason County Health Department's document that accompanied ADAGE and Simpson's SEPA (the local government permitting process) documents. In it, Dr. Diana Yu, the Mason County Health Officer, makes the case that our air here in Mason County is not so bad.

Dr. Yu relies on ORCAA and Department of Ecology documents to help make her case. I would tend to agree if you are comparing our air to Tacoma or Seattle. But we are not Tacoma or Seattle. We are in Mason County. One of the reasons we want to live here is that our air is not like Tacoma or Seattle.

There are some very bad air days downtown Shelton in the winter. There are days when our eyes burn and people with asthma are surviving with inhalers, and it stinks. We can't prove it to ORCAA or to Dr Yu, as there has apparently never been an ORCAA air pollution monitoring station downtown.

All of the data that Dr Yu makes use of in her "White Paper" is data collected from the monitor on top of the hospital. I work at the hospital. On the bad days on my way home, as I go down the hill into downtown Shelton, a brown cloud can be seen over the area and it smells foul. It gets worse as I go lower. And by the time I get to the Post Office, my eyes are itching and burning.

Maybe it is just a coincidence that the “bad days” also seem to happen when Simpson is operating their old incinerator. It seems odd to me that in spite of fact that the major existing sources of air pollution in Mason County are downtown, the pollution monitoring station was set up at the hospital. Odd, don't you think? ORCAA has recently said that a new monitoring station will actually be set up downtown. And we know why if it happens. We local “kooks” made an issue of it with ORCAA.

Dr. Yu doesn't come right out and say that the Health Department has no objections to ADAGE or Simpson's new incinerators, but she implies that she has faith in organizations like ORCAA and the Department of Ecology to watch out for us...so no problems.

Well, I would tend to disagree. The ORCAA reviews and SEPA are permitting processes. That means that they are designed to permit. That is their intention and goal...to permit polluting industries to setup shop here. But the industries will be made to jump through a few hoops first though, to make it look like somebody is really looking out for us.

ADAGE is gone, maybe. I'm sure the Port would gladly welcome somebody else to fill ADAGE's shoes. It's that clean air. It is driving them crazy.

Simpson, however, not being satisfied with one incinerator fouling the air, wants another. Unlike ADAGE which made claims of various jobs and other benefits for the community, Simpson can't really do that with their second proposed incinerator because there aren't any. Simpson has stated at a public meeting that the reason for the new plant is to make money selling electricity to somebody, somewhere else. What our community would receive in exchange is tons of new pollution, and a beautiful new tall smokestack right in downtown Shelton.

Simpson has already made a mess of the air in Tacoma and now wants to do the same here. I know! I know, Dr. Yu! ORCAA will protect us, right? The SEPA process will protect us, right? The City of Shelton and PUD3 will protect us, right? With all of these public servants protecting us, what is there to fear? Right?

See you at the City of Shelton Meeting tonight!

Photo of Simpson emissions by Christine

SHELTON BLOG NOTE:

CITY OF SHELTON COMMISSION MEETING
Monday, March 28th, at 6:00 PM
Shelton Civic Center
Let's crowd the room with our MDNS concerns!