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Apologies and Next Steps From: Alan Muller Date: 2007 Jul 02 16:41 UTC Short link
I received the following message privately from Mr. Bos, the PR guy for the
burner project. It is a manipulative technique to sometimes respond privately
and sometimes publicly....so I'm posting it.
I really don't have time to respond to all the items in his post, but will to
this one:
[John Bos writes] Your opposition to that project [in Minnesota] is based on
the fact that it would include refuse derived waste in its fuel mix. That is
not the case with Russell Biomass.
Not so. A key point I was trying to make in St. Paul is that even if you
exclude garbage ("RDF") and and demolition debris("C&D")the emissions of
particulates (PM-2.5...) will be similar and these are a serious health threat
--maybe the most serious health threat--not adequately considered in air permitting. See http://www.ecomed.org.uk/pub_waste.php. Regards, am ****************** Alan, I am responding to your questions off line because it does not seem possible to have an “honest discussion” on the PVPC Forum. A discussion is about a give and take dialogue with an interest on both sides of an issue to hear the other’s concerns and questions. The Forum has become a repository for assertions, allegations, misstatements, disinformation, and downright lies in support of a particular belief. I don’t know who you are, where you live, how it is that you came into this controversy or what your interests are. But if you can tell me with a straight face that the language and assertions that come from some of the more energetic opponents serves the interests of an open and honest discussion, then we have nothing to talk about. That said, I will answer your last set of questions and see if it is possible to have a one-on-one honest discussion with the representative of an environmental advocacy organization without having to perform for others on the Forum. Your questions are in blue, my answers and questions in black. -----Original Message----- From: Alan Muller [mailto:<email obscured>] Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2007 11:18 PM To: Pioneer Valley Base Camp Subject: Re: [PV-Base Camp] Apologies and Next Steps I was not going to respond to the post from John Bos. After all, he signs as "Public Information Officer RUSSELL BIOMASS LLC" so obviously his job is to promote the facility and nobody is likely to deter him with argument from doing his job..... My job is to attempt to provide the public with reliable information about the Russell Biomass project. If you came into this process well after we began to reach out to Russell residents, let me provide a little background. In February 2005, we sent a confidential survey to every household in Russell asking for their responses to a wide range of questions pertaining to the quality of life in Russell and the impacts that the biomass plant might have. By far, the largest concern was the truck traffic that would come through the middle of the village on Main Street. Every other concern paled in comparison. The survey responses were published in the local newspaper. As a result, one of the biomass developers purchased land outside of town that could be used as an alternative delivery route to the proposed plant. Bear in mind several things. Until the Westfield River Paper Company closed in 1995, Main Street had been used for all truck and auto traffic to and from the plant. There were actually MORE vehicles (paper delivery trucks and workers’ automobiles) using Main Street daily than would be used by the biomass wood chip trucks but fewer paper delivery trucks that there would be wood chip trucks. Whether or not the alternate roadway option is exercised is totally up to the town. If the town DOES choose to use the alternate road all truck traffic, including the current gravel and lumber trucks now using Main Street, would be diverted. Main Street would have no truck traffic for the first time in a century. This would appear to be a win-win situation… and it is for all but two families. Those two families live on Frog Hollow Road, the possible alternative roadway, and 80 trucks a day would go right by their homes. No one could possibly want that to happen to them. So it boils down to a civic dilemma pitting the quality of life for two families against the considerable benefits for everyone else in Russell and especially for the 20 or so homeowners on Main Street. The opposition to the biomass plant is a classic NIMBY response organized by one of those families. They simply do not want to see the plant built across the Westfield River from their home. They have opposed every project that has been proposed for the 100-year-old industrial site since moving to Russell in the late 90’s. Aren’t industrially zoned sites intended for industry? Lest you think I am inventing a convenient fiction, please read the conclusion of a student assigned by the Westfield State College Environmental Studies program to examine the interests of five identified stakeholders in Russell Biomass. She interviewed Town officials, an official of the state Department of Energy Resources, the opposition leaders (Concerned Citizens of Russell), the other community group (Citizens for Renewable Energy) and, of course, Russell Biomass. In her conclusion to the project findings she wrote: “The community has a responsibility to be educated on issues directly involving their homes and families; however there is substantial evidence that most of the opposition involved has turned their own personal issues into ‘environmental’ issues. “The bottom line is that the plant will not be built if it does not receive the 20 approvals and permits (which include environmental and health issues) needed from the town, state, and federal government.” That’s the background Alan and it can offer you a perspective on why the opposition leadership speaks the way it does. I suggest to you that they are doing the majority of Russell residents a great disservice by making false claims and attempting to stop a project that could be good for the community in a host of ways. Now to your questions. But there are actually some interesting claims or comments in his post. In the post John responds to I wrote "I consider myself something of a student of manipulated public involvement processes." He says; "As a self-professed "student of manipulated public involvement processes," what do you make of these facts? There's no manipulation in this message...just a presentation of factual information all of which is verifiable." I say the message is full of manipulation. For instance, you write: "Ask yourself if Cooley Dickenson Hospital would operate a wood boiler (NOT an incinerator) in the hospital building complex if there was ANY possibility that it would be harmful to patients. I don't thinkso." Well, it might. Many hospitals burn "medical waste," emitting dioxin. But in any case how is this "verifiable?" Alan: what are you saying? That Cooley Dickenson Hospital would operate a wood boiler knowing that there is some possibility of doing harm to their patients? Of course, it’s verifiable. They had to go through a multi-step permitting process the same way we have to do. Those permits and the required operating reports monitor the biomass plant’s emissions. Alan, one of the reasons the Forum isn’t working as an open discussion process is because people chose only that which supports their belief system. You avoid referencing my mention of the 26 Vermont schools, Mt. Watchusett Community College, etc. along with Cooley Dickenson. Do you believe they are also creating harmful health conditions for their students? Is there no institution you believe in or trust? You wrote: "Do you think it was "manipulative public involvement" for the Toxics ActionCenter to award Russell Biomass a "Dirty Dozen Award" for emissions from a power plant that exists only on paper and for which accurate, FACTUAL emission measurements are not possible to make?" Well, lets see .... You say, correctly, that "... FACTUAL emission measurements are not possible to make?" But you want the community to let you build the plant and trust you that the emissions will not be harmful ....? Alan: As I wrote in an earlier post, there are 80 operating biomass plants in the U.S. Do you think every single one of them are unsafe? Are you suggesting that it we are successful in passing the permitting process by 20 state agencies that you think the emissions will be harmful? Will you shut it down if people don't like the results of measurements after startup? The plant would be shut down if it does not operate within the parameters established by the various permits. You write: "Do you view as fact the constant charge that Russell Biomass will one day, if not now, burn construction and demolition wood (C&D) as fuel? There is now on record at Russell Town Hall a signed legal agreement to never burn such material...a guarantee that extends to any and all future owners of the power plant should it ever be sold. If the opposition one more time asserts that we will burn C&D, would you consider that as manipulative? Or deliberate disinformation?" How about sending me a scan of that "signed legal agreement" and posting it on this site? Attached please find a scan of the agreement we signed with the Town of Russell. We sent it at the end of March but it was not signed by the Town until recently. you wrote: "FACT: Voting for or against the PVPC Clean Energy Plan has absolutely NO impact on whether the Russell Biomass electric power plant will be built or not. That decision is in the hands of twenty different state agencies and departments charged with assessing, approving or disapproving of the projects plant design and operations." Hmmm. Are you saying that the views of the "host community" don't matter and you will build it whether people want it or not? With respect to the “host community,” the PVPC Forum does not represent the host community which is Russell. The PVPC Forum was intended to be a place where the entire range of options by which to deal with climate change, the ever-increasing demand for electric power, and other environmental issues could be dealt with for the whole of western Massachusetts. It has become, instead, a forum solely focused on Russell Biomass. That said, the views of the host community are all important and are represented by a long-established democratic process. The residents of Russell, as in every other town, elect the people they want to represent their interests. The Special Permit issued by the Town two years ago was received a near unanimous approval vote by every member of the Selectboard, the ZBA and the Planning Board with one nay vote from the then chair of the Planning Board. Without legitimate community approval the project could not move forward. Alan…You live in Delaware. What is your interest in the host community of Russell, MA? Would you like to be paid to come to Russell to make another presentation as Nancy Hone had you do when she flew you into St. Paul to deliver your “Between a Rock-Tenn and a Hard Place” presentation? http://greendel.org/images/Between%20a%20Rock-Tenn%20and%20a%20Hard%20PlacePDF.pdf. My understanding is that local officials are trying to save the 500 high-paying jobs at Rock-Tenn by finding an affordable energy source to replace the loss of the cheap steam energy they used to get from the old Xcel Energy’s High Bridge coal-fired plant now converted to natural gas. Your opposition to that project is based on the fact that it would include refuse derived waste in its fuel mix. That is not the case with Russell Biomass. Could you direct me to the 2005 study by the British doctors you use as a basis of your opposition in your PowerPoint presentation? I’d like to compare it to the data upon which we have based our air quality impact analysis. Are you willing to post a list of permits and approvals you have applied for and copies of those applications, particularly an air permit application? While this information has been publicly available at Russell Town Hall for a long time I am including below a list of all of the permits we are required to submit given the fact that you live out of state.. Copies of the permit application are available at Town Hall and are far too extensive to post in the files section of the Forum. You wrote: "PVPC plan lost the referendum in the same way that the local Russell biomass plant "referendum" in Russell failed for the second time in two years to unseat a highly popular selectboard member who supports the plant ONLY IF it passes the permitting process." Are you suggesting there is a significant possibility that permits would be denied? Since permits are seldom denied, I think that encouraging people to rely on the permitting process, if you are doing that, would be deceptive. But, perhaps you can tell us what percentage of air permit applications in MA have been denied in the last 5 or 10 years, so folks can form their own opinions? What I wrote was “Looking at the vote "no" effort as a referendum on the biomass plant, those opposing the biomass project THROUGH the PVPC plan lost the referendum in the same way that the local Russell biomass plant "referendum" in Russell failed for the second time in two years to unseat a highly popular selectboard member who supports the plant ONLY IF it passes the permitting process." Alan: The permitting process is tighter than ever with the DEP pushing for the most stringent standards that the best available technology can deliver. Getting through the permitting process is not a slam dunk. In any case, I gather that you do not believe the permitting process will safeguard the public health. If that is the case, what do you propose as an alternative adjudicating process to determine whether the biomass plant (or ANY major community project) would be safe? You write: "Bottom line is that to do nothing is morally indefensible." Are you suggesting it is immoral to oppose your wood burner project? Nope. I’m suggesting that unwarranted local opposition (lacking a scientific basis) has slowed the state’s goal of reducing our dependence upon fossil fuels with no realistic options to suggest in place of killing Cape Wind, the Berkshires and Florida, MA wind farms, and Russell Biomass. It is absolutely true that large measures of conservation and energy efficiency along with renewable energy would begin to reverse the impacts of global warming and our dependence upon foreign oil and all that has brought with it. But do you see it happening fast enough? What you’re your response be if everyone was required by law to drive a car that got 40 miles per gallon or better, use only fluorescent bulbs, or to replace their old wood stove with a more expensive, but environmentally safer pellet stove? Would you see that as government interference? Writing about the "biomass" industry, you write: "Of the 43 that were in operation in California in 1994, only 29 are currently producing electricity. ten are available to come back into service with the right incentives." You write: "So at a time when more biomass facilities are needed, fewer and fewer are in operation." "Across the country in 2003, there were approximately 80 operating biomass power plants. These plants are located in 19 states. In addition, there were about 40 plants which could have been operable, but which were not." One wonders why people should support a new biomass burner in Western MA when about fifty percent of them nationally are shut down. What sort of deals have been cut that makes such an expensive and polluting power source appealing to investors in this case (Russell)? Cheap coal and oil has made the environmentally safer biomass plants not profitable to operate…until now with the fast increasing cost of petroleum. If you want to do a little research, check out the HUGE subsidies that the oil and coal industries get from the U.S. government. Everyone knows that we have been driving with subsidized gasoline for decades unlike auto owners in Europe. Now it’s catching up with us. If the subsidies to coal and oil were redirected to wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and other renewable energy potential, the world could become a safer place. OK< enough out of me. I think people should probably stop arguing with promoters of the burner and spend that energy organizing to stop it... Alan, you have chosen to respond to my last posting to you selectively by not mentioning any of the other points I raised. I ask you again: What do you see as steps we in western Massachusetts should take to try to reclaim a healthy environment? Is Do you consider the opposition's assertion that our plant's emissions would be the equivalent of 12,000 wood stoves to be "manipulative?" If so, on what basis? Do you think the use of the word "incinerator" in place of the technically accurate word "boiler" be as "manipulative?" (Is an Outside Wood Boiler an incinerator? Were the old, pre-diesel steam engines incinerators or boilers?) I believe that I have provided you with everything you requested. I now ask you for the information and data upon which you base your opposition to Russell Biomass. John Bos Alan Muller Green Delaware C&D Town Letter.jpg No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database