{"id":2548,"date":"2010-12-30T16:29:15","date_gmt":"2010-12-30T21:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/12\/your-determination-to-sell-our-community-your-biomass-project-dr-noll-to-brad-lofton.html"},"modified":"2010-12-30T16:29:15","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T21:29:15","slug":"your-determination-to-sell-our-community-your-biomass-project-dr-noll-to-brad-lofton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/12\/your-determination-to-sell-our-community-your-biomass-project-dr-noll-to-brad-lofton.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Your determination to sell our community your biomass project&#8221; &#8211;Dr. Noll to Brad Lofton"},"content":{"rendered":"First of a series. -jsq\n<blockquote>\nFrom: &#8220;Michael G. Noll&#8221;\n<br>\nTo: Brad Lofton &lt;blofton@industrialauthority.com&gt;, &#8220;John S. Quarterman,\nAllan Ricketts, &lt;aricketts@industrialauthority.com&gt;\n<br>\nCC: &#8220;Susan R. Wehling&#8221;, &#8220;Mary B. Gooding&#8221;, Roy Copeland, Kay Harris\n<br>\nSubject: RE: Wiregrass Power, LLC\n<br>\nDate: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:46:25 +0000\n<p>\nHello Mr. Lofton.\n<p>\nI can certainly admire your determination to sell our community your\nbiomass project as &#8220;green&#8221; or &#8220;safe&#8221;. However, as WACE already pointed\nout, there is a difference between fiction and fact (see my guest\ncolumn in the VDT on December 12, 2010).\n<p>\nIn the last couple months, WACE has provided the Industrial Authority\nand the community with a plethora of scientific literature and\nstatements made by medical organizations that unequivocally state that\nbiomass is neither &#8220;green&#8221; nor &#8220;safe&#8221;. At the same time, neither you\nnor Mr. Ricketts have been able to provide up-to-date scientific proof\nto us to challenge the position that biomass is, in fact, dirtier than\ncoal and bears significant health risks.\n<p>\nAnyone who cares enough for the community he or she lives in, must\nunderstand the responsibility to provide such proof. I have\ndifficulties to imagine that you or Mr. Ricketts do not share such a\nsentiment, despite the disagreements we might have.\nLet&#8217;s cut to the chase in regard to your panel of experts:\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<!--more-->\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>\nif my memory serves me correctly, none of them provided any sources\nor studies in their slides to back up their claims. Our community needs\nmore than just &#8220;assurances&#8221; (or for that matter political statements,\nwhich can change as quickly as the weather does)\n<li>\nlikewise, I don&#8217;t recall any details from these presentations in\nterms of quantifying just how much pollution we can expect, although\nyour application is rather specific on the matter. Why would that be?\n<li>\nat the same time, the few numbers that were used in the presentation\nappear different from what is found in your application (e.g. 400,000\ntons of wood waste burned per year vs. 637,000 tons of wood waste as\nstated in your application)\n<li>\nyour expert from Iowa compared a biomass plant that burns oat hulls\n(from a Quaker Oats factory down the street) with your proposed biomass\nplant that would burn sewage sludge and wood waste. Such a comparison\nis the equivalent of comparing apples with oranges.\n<li>\nthe panel did not include one medical professional to provide proof\nthat biomass plants are &#8220;safe&#8221;, despite the fact that the health risks\nassociated with this plant are what matter most to the community.\nInstead you had a toxicologist on the panel, who seems to take lightly\nthe toxicity of one of the most dangerous chemical compounds on our\nplanet (dioxin) and who seems not to understand the health risks\nassociated with PM2.5 pollution.\n<li>\nyour economic expert ultimately did not do much more than to assure\nus that &#8220;a job, is a job, is a job&#8221;, and was poorly prepared to present\nthe economic benefits (if any) of your project for the community in the\nlong run\n<li>\nif you add to the fiasco of a poor economic impact analysis the fact\nthat there is no environmental impact or health impact analysis, you\ncannot help it but wonder what &#8220;due diligence&#8221; means to some of us in\nthe community\n<\/ul>\nTo address these and other issues, WACE will host another forum on\nJanuary 13 at the University Center at VSU.\n<p>\nWe cordially invite members of the Industrial Authority and our\ncommunity to attend this event. An announcement with more specifics\nwill follow in early January.\n<p>\nMerry Christmas and a Healthy New Year.\n<p>\nBest regards, Michael G. Noll, President\n<br>\nWiregrass Activists for Clean Energy\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First of a series. -jsq From: &#8220;Michael G. Noll&#8221; To: Brad Lofton &lt;blofton@industrialauthority.com&gt;, &#8220;John S. Quarterman, Allan Ricketts, &lt;aricketts@industrialauthority.com&gt; CC: &#8220;Susan R. Wehling&#8221;, &#8220;Mary B. Gooding&#8221;, Roy Copeland, Kay Harris Subject: RE: Wiregrass Power, LLC Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:46:25 +0000 Hello Mr. Lofton. I can certainly admire your determination to sell our community [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,120,14,15,16,41,21,32,23,73,4468,289,133,178],"tags":[4936,193,8738,1747,5016,300,969,4894,1246,793,189,186,847,1169,185,561,181,183,8883,8714,8749,8743,8796],"class_list":["post-2548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-economy","category-education","category-environment","category-health-care","category-planning","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-safety","category-save","category-science","category-vdt","category-vlcia","tag-aldosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-allan-ricketts","tag-biomass","tag-brad-lofton","tag-christopher-teaf","tag-development","tag-economics","tag-exports","tag-gary-minchew","tag-industry","tag-j-stephen-gupton","tag-jerry-jennett","tag-jobs","tag-marketing","tag-mary-gooding","tag-michael-g-noll","tag-norman-bennett","tag-roy-copeland","tag-save","tag-solar","tag-vlcia","tag-vsu","tag-wace"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-F6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}