{"id":2731,"date":"2010-04-01T10:23:43","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T14:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/04\/biomass-air-quality-hearing-set.html"},"modified":"2010-04-01T10:23:43","modified_gmt":"2010-04-01T14:23:43","slug":"biomass-air-quality-hearing-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/04\/biomass-air-quality-hearing-set.html","title":{"rendered":"Biomass Air Quality Hearing Set"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/a>\nThis appears to be the date and location for the Georgia EPD\nair quality hearing for the Wiregrass Biomass plant proposed\nfor Valdosta:\n
\n<\/em>\n6:30 PM, 27 April 2010\n
\nMultipurpose Room\n
\nValdosta City Hall Annex\n
\n300 North Lee Street\n
\nValdosta, Georgia\n<\/blockquote>\nWe’ve been waiting on this date \nfor a while.<\/a>\nEPD is going to send a press release to the VDT a few weeks in advance\nand post it on its own website,\nwww.georgiaair.org<\/a>.\nAssuming, of course, that the date and place don’t change again.\n

\nWhy should you care?\nThis plant proposes to burn sewage sludge, which can release numerous\nhazardous chemicals into the air.\nHere is Seth’s letter to the editor of the VDT of 21 Feb 2010:\n\n\n

\n

Toxic chemicals<\/H3>\nAfter reading the list of toxic chemicals Wiregrass Power LLC plans to emit into our community\u2019s air, which it listed in its Air Permit Application, I am convinced that citizens of Lowndes County should be greatly concerned. The company plans to burn over 3,000 tons of sewage sludge, a combination of human waste, household chemicals, leaked automotive fluids, and industrial wastes, in its proposed biomass power plant.\n

\nThe National Lung Association’s recent State of the Air report draws clear connections between lung and heart disease, asthma, and the air emissions from biomass power plants. As a result of this and similar studies, the Florida and Massachusetts Medical Associations have passed resolutions calling on governments to stop all new biomass power plant construction. Let me be clear: the emissions from the proposed Wiregrass Biomass Plant will increase rates of heart and lung disease in Valdosta and surrounding areas, and will ultimately shorten the lifespan of some members of our community. I hope that our elected officials will stand up for local families in upcoming EPD hearings, and will support a healthy and clean economy rooted in energy efficiency and real renewable energy.\n

\nSeth Gunning\n

\nValdosta\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nThe only thing I can find on the Industrial Authority’s website\nabout this plant is \npress release from the governor of last September.<\/a>\nThat letter confirms that the plant is supposed to burn sewage sludge.\nIt does not say anything about emissions.\n

\nWe’re all for jobs, but this plant will only create 25 long-term jobs,\nat the price of apparently endangering the health of far more people.\nWe could do better, for example by encouraging solar energy production,\nlike Texas<\/a>\nor Florida.<\/a>\nIf even Germany can do it<\/a>,\nlocated much farther north, we can do it in south Georgia.\nYes, I know Wiregrass LLC proposes to build a token solar installation\nin addition to the biomass plant, but why not just go straight for solar?\n

\n\n<\/a>\nIf the point is to support Georgia’s forestry industry, there’s a much\nmore direct path:\n\nreforestation, which creates more than twice as many jobs as biomass (and nine times as many as nuclear).<\/a>\nReforestation would\n\nbuild on the existing Conservation Reserve Program for planting new longleaf pines,<\/a> by turning them into longterm forests.\nAnd that would provide sustainable logging for the forestry industry.<\/a>\n

\nIf the point is jobs, how about \nsupport retraining of ex-prisoners and reintegration of them into the economy.<\/a>\n

\nAny or all of these things would be better in the long run.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This appears to be the date and location for the Georgia EPD air quality hearing for the Wiregrass Biomass plant proposed for Valdosta: 6:30 PM, 27 April 2010 Multipurpose Room Valdosta City Hall Annex 300 North Lee Street Valdosta, Georgia We’ve been waiting on this date for a while. EPD is going to send a […]","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":[97,556,120,16,740,558,72,21,32,23,73,24],"tags":[5133,8738,8704,5190,8706,1909,8801,8701,876,8730,5829,7,4823,2712,8713,960,61,8714,6,5629],"class_list":["post-2731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-air","category-biomass","category-environment","category-forestry","category-germany","category-incarceration","category-planning","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-safety","category-solar","tag-air-quality","tag-biomass","tag-economy","tag-emissions","tag-environment","tag-epd","tag-forestry","tag-georgia","tag-health","tag-incarceration","tag-long-run","tag-lowndes-county","tag-reforestation","tag-rehabilitation","tag-renewable-energy","tag-seth-gunning","tag-sewage","tag-solar","tag-valdosta","tag-wiregrass-llc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-I3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731","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=2731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}