{"id":2627,"date":"2010-09-25T16:48:27","date_gmt":"2010-09-25T20:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/industrial-authority-response-to-two-letters-to-the-editor.html"},"modified":"2010-09-25T16:48:27","modified_gmt":"2010-09-25T20:48:27","slug":"industrial-authority-response-to-two-letters-to-the-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/industrial-authority-response-to-two-letters-to-the-editor.html","title":{"rendered":"Industrial Authority Response to Two Letters to the Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"The appended message from a tax-supported public official\nto many people about official business was forwarded to me;\nperhaps the public would also like to see it.\n

\nThe CCA press conference he mentions seems to have been\ncovered by the VDT in this article:\nto be about \nPrivate prison company picks Valdosta as potential site<\/a>.\n

\nThe rest of the letter is about issues related to the\n\nbiomass plant<\/a>\nproposed for Lowndes County by Wiregrass Power LLC\n(wholly owned by Sterling Energy Assets of Atlanta)\nand backed by the\n\nValdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA)<\/a>,\nof which Brad Lofton is the Executive Director.\nHere’s the letter from Leigh Touchton of the NAACP<\/a> to which he refers.\n

\n-jsq\n

\n\n<\/a>\nFrom: Brad Lofton [mailto:blofton@industrialauthority.com]\n
\nSent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 4:37 PM\n
\nTo: ‘Brad Lofton’\n
\nSubject: Industrial Authority Response to Two Letters to the Editor Yesterday\n
\nImportance: High\n

\nGood afternoon everyone:\n

\nThanks to all of you that were able to attend our CCA press conference and\nbreakfast yesterday. We’ve had positive feedback today from around the\nregion, and we’ve received congratulations from most of the other 15\ncommunities competing for the project.\n

\nAfter reading the two letters to the editor yesterday, I felt compelled to\ne-mail our stakeholders to provide you an update with facts and information\nrelated to the biomass plant. We have intentionally avoided a response in\nthe paper because we do not want to energize a forum for continued\nmisinformation. Despite numerous town hall meetings and other meetings\nwe’ve facilitated for two years, there is still plenty of misinformation on\nthe street.\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

\nWe were especially disappointed with the Chairman of the NAACP’s letter\nyesterday alleging that the Authority is an “environmental racist” by\nintentionally placing the project in a minority neighborhood. At our\nrequest, the South Georgia Regional Commission performed a one-mile\ndemographic analysis of the plant, and the current census data indicates an\nethnic population breakdown of 2309 Whites, 205 Blacks, and 144\nHispanics–there is almost seven times the number of white residents compared\nto minorities. The company’s physical site requirements for the plant\ndictated the project location–proximity to a high transmission line,\nproximity to a wastewater treatment plant for cooling water, and good\ntransportation access. These were the only factors in locating the project\noff of Perimeter Road and adjacent to Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.\nAs a reminder, our project’s use of treated wastewater will prevent nearly\none million gallons per day of aquifer\/potable water use, and our project is\nthe only plant in America we are aware of that will make use of the reclaimed\nwater source. Georgia Trend Magazine<\/i> noted that the decision to locate\nthe plant adjacent to the City’s Mud Creek Wastewater Plant is an example of\ngood government and environmental stewardship.\n

\nThe additional letter to the editor yesterday alleges a Chernobyl type\nenvironmental fallout once the plant comes online. The sole purpose,\nhowever, for the project is to create a clean<\/u>, green, domestically sourced\nrenewable energy plant. This is exactly what our project will produce.\nAfter our visit to Cadillac, MI to tour a similar-sized plant, we contacted\nscores of local residents, realtors, government officials, and economic\ndevelopment officials in the community to gauge their impression of the\nMichigan plant. Unanimously, they all supported the plant, and they\ncharacterize the facility as a leading corporate citizen in the community.\nOther than during start-up operations when the company initially used\nreclaimed tires for fuel, there has never been soot on vehicles and homes\n(as was alleged yesterday), and the surrounding property has developed and\nflourished. (Wiregrass Power is permitted to use only clean woody biomass\nforestry residue, mill residue, clean urban untreated wood waste, wastewater\ntreatment plant sludge of approximately 0.5 percent of total heat input to\nthe boiler and small quantities of natural gas during startup, shut down and\nboiler stabilization operations-no tires.) The plant remains a leading\ntaxpayer in the community, and it has had a tremendous impact on the timber\nand agricultural industry there.\n

\nA specific allegation made yesterday of heavy metals that will be emitted in\nthe air comes from Mercury and the burning of the City’s sludge (less than\n1% of the plant’s fuel). The burning of the sludge will actually lengthen\nthe life of the regional landfill, and it will provide the City with revenue\nin lieu of an expense for “landfilling” it. Where most emissions controlled\nby an EPD permit are calculated in tons per year<\/u><\/b>, the projected Mercury\nthat will be emitted from this plant will be less than 0.136 pounds per\nyear<\/u><\/i><\/b> and is statistically insignificant. There will be no Mercury emitted\nfrom the 99% wood fuel.\n

\nAnytime you combust wood product, you have a nominal amount of particulate\nmatter, but the plant will be state-of-the-art and will employ two\nadditional control devices above and beyond their EPD permit requirement\ngoverned by the Federal Clean Air Act. The particulate matter will be less\nthan 0.03 pounds per million btu input and will be handled via a bag house\ntechnology that will nearly eliminate all particulate matter.\n

\nOur Wiregrass Project has been endorsed and supported by everyone we have\nbeen in contact with over the past two years. It is supported by the Obama\nAdministration via federal renewable energy tax credits. The state of\nGeorgia has listed the technology as a targeted industry for the state, and\nenvironmental groups across the country enthusiastically support this form\nof green energy. The technology is currently employed at three existing\nindustries in our community today (PCA, ADM, and Langdale). PCA’s current\n$230 million expansion is a biomass conversion that is substantially larger\nthan this plant. Due to the mill’s change to the same technology we’re\ndeveloping, and even though PCA is significantly larger than our project,\nthey will be considered the “greenest” paper mill in America. Similar to\nPCA, but on a smaller scale, our plant will replace 40 megawatts of coal\nproduced electricity, and these mills are carbon neutral which adds to its\nenvironmental benefit.\n

\nThe biomass plant will provide good jobs, substantial revenue to our County\nand Board of Education, and it will be a safe asset for our community. Have\na great remainder of the week, and please let us know if we can discuss this\nproject further with any members of your constituency.\n

\nRegards,\n

\nBL\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The appended message from a tax-supported public official to many people about official business was forwarded to me; perhaps the public would also like to see it. The CCA press conference he mentions seems to have been covered by the VDT in this article: to be about Private prison company picks Valdosta as potential site. […]","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":[120,141,216,14,16,2,2951,21,32,1106,178],"tags":[5312,8750,5133,8738,2113,1747,5311,4129,8817,903,2043,8745,8753,2858,8704,2061,4566,1909,188,5315,8801,8701,5406,5343,1790,793,847,154,2081,4020,7,1809,1603,5220,8863,1197,4530,4874,5221,1327,8715,5314,5405,5313,6,2900,180,8816,8742,8749,294,4123],"class_list":["post-2627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biomass","category-co2","category-coal","category-economy","category-environment","category-government","category-naacp","category-planning","category-pollution","category-vboe","category-vlcia","tag-adm","tag-agriculture","tag-air-quality","tag-biomass","tag-board-of-education","tag-brad-lofton","tag-cadillac","tag-carbon-dioxide","tag-cca","tag-chernobyl","tag-clean","tag-co2","tag-coal","tag-corrections-corporation-of-america","tag-economy","tag-electricity","tag-environmental-racism","tag-epd","tag-executive-director","tag-federal-clean-air-act","tag-forestry","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-trend-magazine","tag-global-climate-change","tag-green","tag-industry","tag-jobs","tag-landfill","tag-langdale","tag-leigh-touchton","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mercury","tag-michigan","tag-mud-creek-wastewater-treatment-plant","tag-naacp","tag-paper-mill","tag-particulates","tag-pca","tag-perimeter-road","tag-permit","tag-pollution","tag-sewage-sludge","tag-south-georgia-regional-commission","tag-timber","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-daily-times","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vboe","tag-vdt","tag-vlcia","tag-wastewater","tag-wiregrass-power-llc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-Gn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627","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=2627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}