2/17/11
Several local business people attempted to build a wood burning incinerator in the Beard Industrial tract. This burner would have burned trash and orchard wood to create electricity.
They intended to sell the energy to MID, who would then sell it to you and me.Every fourth grader knows that when you burn wood, you get smoke, ash and it smells. High school kids know that you also get pollution. Burning carbon products creates pollution.
Every time it is tried.The question is, how much pollution, and can it be cleaned up so it does not kill people. These local business people promised that their burner would not kill people.
The leaders of the Stanislaus Taxpayers Association did the appropriate research, and found that “biomass burners” create so much pollution, they are hazardous to people.I testified before the MID Board of Directors “All biomass plants are dirty, and the one proposed for the middle of Modesto will be dirty enough to affect the health of Modestans.”
The MID Directors reviewed all the evidence, and voted to require the burner proponents to complete a real Environmental Impact Report which would reveal how much pollution would really be released by their burner. So far, the proponents have declined to do so. It is strongly rumored, however, that they intend to bring back this proposal, and beg the MID to permit the plant with no environmental report.
Today, the Modesto BEE, in a story on page B-2, tells us, “EPA levies major fines against biomass plants”. Oh, my!!!! It turns out that biomass burners in Madera and Merced counties are gross polluters. They create and release so much “excess ozone-related emissions and other violations” that they received the largest fines ever levied in the San Joaquin Valley and California. The Federal EPA levied the fines.
They say this is a victory. I think not. What about the children and elderly whose lungs have been damaged by three years of “excess” ozone? Will the EPA share the fines with them?The facts are clear. The San Joaquin Air Board allowed these plants to be built and operated with no oversight.
The results are three years of massive pollutants foisted on the Citizens of Madera and Merced counties. Are you and I going to allow this to happen in Modesto?
Are you and I going to support the MID Directors who voted to deny a permit to the proposed Modesto plant? Are you and I going to vote the rascals who support the Modesto burner out of office?
What ARE you and I going to do? I pray that we are ever watchful and active in protecting our Citizens.
Thank you very much,
Dave
