IMAGINE THAT!
Submitted to Shelton Blog by John Cox Mason County Progressive
There is a long history of the downtown Shelton area being inundated with air pollution, odors and noise pollution from Simpson Lumber Company and its blood relatives operating on the shoreline of Dioxin Bay...oops, I mean Oakland Bay.
We citizens complain to Simpson, and that goes nowhere. We citizens complain to the City, and that goes nowhere. We citizens complain to ORCAA (Olympic Region Clean Air Agency), and that too goes nowhere. ORCAA sends its "nose pros" out to sniff the air and finds nothing. Dave McEntee (a Simpson Vice President) tells us that he has never noticed bad odors coming from Simpson.
Do you get the picture?
We in Shelton know there are days when it stinks downtown. We know there are days when our throats and eyes burn after just going to the Post Office. We know there are adults and families with children with asthma who have to increase their medicines in order to breathe on those days.
When ORCAA relocated the PM 2.5 air monitor to the roof of the new Public Safety Building, we had hopes that this would support our complaints to ORCAA and maybe, just maybe, they would do something about it.
A few months after the new monitor had been in operation, we had an opportunity to talk to Dave McEntee after the public hearing for the Simpson Lumber pollution permit renewal. We expressed our concerns that the monitor did not seem to be actually measuring anything from Simpson. We expressed our concerns about the malodorous and polluted air. This is when Mr. McEntee declared that he had never noticed any bad smells coming from Simpson. He then mentioned that one of the Simpson engineers had done a study comparing the incinerator output and the monitor levels, and had found (suprise!) no correlation. So we asked for a copy of the study and it was sent to us.
As advertised, the study did not show any correlation between the air monitor readings and Simpson's incinerator operation. None! Simpson is burning tons and tons of wood and whatever else 24/7, which according to their permit, releases tons and tons of particulate matter (PM 2.5)...and the monitor, located a few hundred yards away, does not indicate it. Imagine that!
Our conclusion from this was that either the study wasn't done correctly, or the monitor just doesn't work in its present location, or both.
We sent the study to ORCAA engineer Mark Goodin for his opinion. He basically said that the study was not detailed enough to be able to draw any conclusions from it, i.e. bad study design. Our interpretation was a bit more harsh. We think the study was designed to show exactly what it does...nothing.
In order for a study to be valid, it would need to use hourly incinerator output data, hourly monitor readings, and wind speed and direction data. We could get the monitor data online. We could get the weather information. What we needed was the Simpson incinerator output data. So we asked for it.
We were eventually told by Dave McEntee, V.P., that Simpson just wasn't interested in providing the data. Imagine that!
So we tried ORCAA. Part of Mark Goodin's response to our request for his opinion about Simpson's "study" was to state (see email in post directly below) that ORCAA received hourly data from Simpson that included this information. We asked for the data as it would qualify as public information if ORCAA had it. ORCAA then changed their story to say that they didn't really have it. They could get it if they wanted it, but they haven't wanted it. Imagine that!
So that's where it stands for now. Simpson Lumber won't give us the data. It's not like it would be a lot of effort for them. A few computer keystrokes, save to a file, and then email it. That's it.
And ORCAA, the protector of our health and environment, is not interested in helping citizens to help themselves either. Imagine that!
Those of us who participated in or followed the recent ADAGE saga will likely notice more than a little correlation with this ongoing Simpson saga.
As with ADAGE, we approached ORCAA as an organization that would help us, as an organization that was there to protect us and the environment. That's all part of its "mission statement". Unfortunately that's a façade. The real function of ORCAA is to "permit" polluters. ORCAA is there to decide how much our community will be exposed to various health hazards. And all this time we thought ORCAA's main job was to protect us. Imagine that!
As a local community, we currently have no say about this. The deck's been stacked by the corporations and their lapdogs in Congress. If a corporation wants to come here and pollute our air, water and land, they have to go through the permitting process. The permitting process is essentially controlled by Congress, and Congress is essentially controlled by corporations through lobbyists. The bottom line is, if polluters want to come, they will be "permitted" to do so. Imagine that!
Presently, local communities have little choice about allowing a corporation or other entities to begin polluting or otherwise destroy the local environment. If a corporation goes through the permitting process, that's it. The corporate gambit to control the process has paid off with profits for the corporation, and polluted air, polluted ground water, environmental destruction, and all manner of other evils for the community.
In Pennsylvania, coal companies will mine coal seams under towns causing buildings to collapse but it is "permitted". In New York state, companies are using the fracking process to extract natural gas while polluting the ground water and it is "permitted". The current permitting process does not allow local communities to exert any control beyond the permitting process itself. But there is some hope.
Local communities in several states including Washington, have begun passing ordinances that return control of the local resources and environment to local control. In order to do this, we must elect officials that are sympathetic to the will of the people. Please think about this when you vote. Every single member of the current Port of Shelton Commission and the Mason County Board of Commissioners supported ADAGE.
If we want things to change, we must elect officials who will support the will of the people.
Imagine that!
SHELTON BLOG NOTE:
See the post below for the most recent emails with ORCAA.
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