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Letter to The Progress Requesting
Equal Time
Dear Dianne,
I am writing on behalf of
Citizen's for a Clean Curwensville,
about the
article
that you wrote the other day featuring lengthy interviews with
Eric Wallace of Sunnyside and John
Wright of the Curwensville Development Corporation.
I hope you will take the time to consider our following
research as it will verify for you that Mr. Wright and
Sunnyside are not giving you "the full picture" to present to
the public.
We are disappointed that Mr. Wright was allowed to discredit
our organization without even being contacted for an interview
on the topic. He labels us as "uniformed" and "having an
agenda" when in fact we have documentation from experts and
valid sources that prove John Wright is misinforming your
paper and the public. Had we been contacted we would have
been happy to share this with you. Unlike the proponents for
this project (who are on record as being interested for
investment reasons) we have spent 3 weeks semi-dedicated to
real research on the health effects of placing this plant in
the middle of our community and have nothing to gain
financially. I assure you Diane that our interests are purely
the education of the community to the side effects of this
plant. While we were disappointed that he was allowed to
discredit us without response, our real concern is how the
leadership has mislead our community.
Please read our eye-opening research and contact us for an
interview:
Point 1:
eFACTS website information false:
- John Wright is quoted in
this piece as stating that his concerns were put to rest
when he found graphs on the state Department of
Environmental Protection's eFACTS website showing that Penn
State's coal plant uses less coal than Sunnyside and has
higher emissions. First of all, the eFACTS website has info
on permits, violations, and incomplete emissions data but no
info on the type of coal/fuel used. He could not have
possibly gotten this information from eFACTS. Contact with
eFACTS will confirm this.
- While a search of the
databases on this site can reveal "reported numbers" from PA
polluters, the emission listing that Wright referrs to as
his source is very limited in scope and points out only the
handful of pollutants that are tested on a regular basis as
required by DEP. The toxic pollutants that we have been
pointing out (such as dioxins, PAH's, aresenic, lead and
mercury) are not even available for the State College coal
plant on this list although they are emitted. The data from
this and other facilities in PA that must test annually for
these toxic pollutants is simply missing, making them
appear to be zero.
This statement serves the
purpose of misleading the community to believe that if State
College emits nothing harmful then our plant won't either. In
fact one call to DEP will confirm this as false.
Wrights comparison of the two plants is actually laughable as
they are not of similar circumstances by any means. Five such
points follow:
- The State College plant
burns 7000 tons per year. Ours will burn over 290,000 tons
per year.
- The State College plant is
not burning waste coal. Our plant will burn waste coal high
in lead, mercury and chlorine (chlorine when burned produces
the most toxic of cancer causing chemicals). While Mr.
Wright writes this off as unimportant we have documentation
to show otherwise:
http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/wastecoal/pah/
- The State College plant uses
a burner that does not compare to the burner in our
facility.
- The State College plant is
barely visible to the community. Ours will be visible (in a
300 foot smoke stack) across the entire area.
These points again are easily
confirmed by a call to the State College facility and/or the
DEP.
We have a professional quoted as saying "The greatest impact
will be to the children who spend their entire grade school
experience next door to the proposed refinery." Yet no one in
a position of power with this project will give us the data
they've collected in reference to the health effects.
Mr. Wright mislead the public via your article with wrong
information. We followed up on the eFACTS information and
proved his point invalid therefore his arguments misleading if
not flat our wrong.
CITATION: eFACTS
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/efacts/default.asp
Point 2:
No official nor Sunnyside rep has informed the public about
what they call "acceptable risks" and "trade offs"
Mr. Wright has referred to the "risks" involved as
"acceptable". In an official document State Rep. Camille "Bud"
George tells me there are "trade offs". Neither of these
gentlemen will defined the acceptable risks nor the trade offs
for public examination. We decided to find them ourselves. We
have found valid citations that we should have reason for
concern.
- CITATION:
Autism Risk Linked To Distance From Power Plants, Other
Mercury-releasing Sources
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424120953.htm
.
- CITATION: Wright also conveniently compares pollutants
from a waste coal burning fluidized bed plant to a
conventional coal burning plant without pointing out that some
pollutants are emitted in HIGHER amounts from waste coal
plants like Sunnyside's. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs)
are a group of cancer-causing chemicals that are known from
various scientific studies to be released in higher amounts
from fluidized bed burners (the kind used for burning waste
coal).
http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/wastecoal/pah/
Point 3:
No one will make good on the promise of jobs with documentation
or contracts
Mr. Wallace touts the local jobs that Sunnyside would create,
yet a look at the BioNol situation in Clearfield shows that these
promises haven't been met. The circumstances surrounding this
situation are exactly like Curwensville's yet we expect a
different outcome.
- Curwensville like Clearfield has
taken the "word" of Sunnyside for hundreds of spin-off jobs and
a handful of permanent jobs.
- Curwensville like Clearfield
once was is supposedly 2 months from construction and there has
not been one ad for any of these jobs.
- Curwensville is waiting for
"spin-off" jobs. Clearfield has found out that they were
contracted to companies who are not hiring.
Our organization has requested
documentation detailing the pending jobs and the hiring process.
Our reasons are not malicious. We want to prevent Curwensville
from the same fate that Clearfield has found.
In our search for information the only response we have is from a
citizen who was involved in the original meetings. A Sunnyside
representative explained to him that the management jobs will be
brought in from outside sources (inhouse as he called them).
These will account for 1/3 - 2/3 of the 70 jobs. The other 1/3 -
2/3 of the 70 jobs will go to our local residents. We were
shocked as the citizen went on to say that Sunnyside said these
remaining jobs will be $8/hour - 38 hours/week - no health
benefits.
We've asked both Sunnyside and John Wright directly to provide us
with documentation on the 770 jobs they've promised and have been
ignored. (READ EMAILS AND OBSERVATIONS
http://www.cleancurwensville.com)
Why Diane are they ignoring us? We can only believe it is
because they know we will begin to "inform" the public of the
"real facts" about the project and they will be displeased. The
only response we get is more public spin.
Again Diane our organization isn't
making blanket statements without documentation. We have done our
homework. A survey by the industry's Ethanol Producer magazine
shows that 72% of the jobs at a plant are for individuals with a
college or graduate degrees in engineering, chemistry, or biology,
etc. Only 6% of the jobs are for people with only a high school
education. The mantra of "jobs jobs jobs" for our graduates being
spread to the community is misleading and not based on industry
facts. We will soon find ourselves in the same "boat" as
Clearfield citizens waiting for never-coming promised jobs.
Again we see Mr. Wright's statements made to the public through the
media are not fully informed and misleading to the public. Again, I
suggest to you to consider the motives. To paraphrase, Mr. Wright
has said that many local people have personally invested in this
project and he doesn't want our agenda (honesty and education to and
for the public) to stop it from happening. We want to inform he
want to protect financial investments. Yet, he gets the press. We
are, at the very least, disappointed.
Point 4:
Dangerous Toxins (more on "acceptable risks" and "trade-offs")
- Borough Council sited scrubbers and Mr. Wright repeatedly
cites regulation as reasons why this facility will be safe.
When asked for facts to back this up we are given "because
Sunnyside said so". So, our group has done our own research.
Diane, this is very serious and yet the public is not being
informed.
- Regarding the concerns about dioxins and other emissions
that Wright and Wallace have discounted, the environmental
regulations haven't caught up with the science on these topics.
In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been
studying dioxin pollution for about 20 years now and has found
it to be the most toxic category of chemicals known to
science -- mostly produced by burning things that have
chlorine in them (which waste coal has... even more than normal
coal). However, industry pressure has kept EPA from creating
any regulations to act on this new knowledge. As a result,
Sunnyside has no limits on their dioxin pollution and no
requirements to even test for the most toxic category of
chemicals known to science.
CITATION:
http://www.ejnet.org/dioxin/
CITATION: Data showing that PA's bituminous waste coal has 13% more
chlorine than PA's bituminous normal coal is here:
http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/wastecoal/epa-icrdata.html
(it's data EPA collected from the industry in 1999)
- This is the same story for
cancer-causing PAHs. Other toxic pollutants that will be
released into the air, including mercury, lead and arsenic, will
be tested only once a year, when things are going well for the
plant we assume, even though continuous testing technology is
possible and would tell the complete story of what is being
released into the air near the school and so many homes.
- Sunnyside has told the public
that burning over 800 tons of waste coal a day doesn't make them
a major polluter. Their permit classifies them as "a major air
polluter" (Title V Operating Permit). Yet no one is being told
this. Researching the permits given by DEP will show this as
accurate.
- Real-time air monitoring is
available and when it is brought up as a real possibility at a
council meeting the presenting party is scoffed at! It isn't
even considered! I won't link that video because you were
there. This is going to be presented as an option at the
meeting on the 14th and already it is rumored that the "other 5"
will unanimously vote no because it may scare Sunnyside away!
Again we are protecting financial investments over the health of
our community. And the community isn't even aware of it.
CITATION: Continuous monitoring
info:
http://www.ejnet.org/toxics/cems.html
CITATION: "The respective facility, if constructed, will be a
major facility for which a Title V Operating Permit will have to
be obtained."
"Major Source" classification is documented here:
http://www.pabulletin.com/secure/data/vol37/37-15/643a.html
Point 5:
Public meetings already approved by Council at the last public
meeting (you were there) were deemed unnecessary by someone not on
the borough council:
- Wright concluded your piece by
saying that those who didn't show at the previous public meetings
can't expect this to be an ongoing, open-ended process. Those of
us who have recently become vocal in our concerns have been
chastised and openly criticisized for not attending the public
meeting in 2006 and 2007 and our points and concerns summarily
dismissed without even being addressed based on this reasoning.
Some of those who are affiliating
themselves with us were at these meetings by the way. And, they
are now coming forth citing their presence at those meetings as
reasons why they are pushing for more information on the cons of
this project to be shared with the public. They too see this need
because they didn't get that information at these meetings or
in the subsequent press coverage.
Our response to this criticism is this:
- in 2006 and 2007 the public was
not presented with information that would have lead us to
believe that we should have concerned.
- Many of us, busy with our daily
lives and trusting in our elected leadership, rely on what we
see in the news to base our opinions.
- What originally spurned some of
us to look for the other side of the story was correspondence
that we read and public video commentary that was made by some
high-profile proponents of the plant which basically dismissed
"risks" and "trade offs" as acceptable and insignificant.
- Naturally curious, we wanted to
define what these risks and tradeoffs specifically were.
- In the process of this
investigation we've found that there are many serious
risks associated with this sort of project that no one in local
leadership will willingly admit to fully researching.
Furthermore they have taken great care to hide them from the
public yet say we don't need more meetings.
- We've asked point-blank for them
to justify their position and provide us with facts that they
have found through their research and questioning and they have
not done so.
- We simply want to know what our
leadership knows, when they knew it and how they reached their
conclusions that the benefits outweigh the risks of this
project.
- We ask our public leadership for
this information and we continue to hear more propaganda and
decisions apparently being put forth by an unelected volunteer
for a private corporation speaking with what an authority that
he seems to believe he has.
In conclusion Diane we believe that
the public deserves the media to inform them of the complete story
as the average citizen has not and would not do this research
on their own. We have now provided you with the basic
framework of our valid and documented research. We are not
"uninformed". We are also not "a group with an agenda". Won't
you Diane help us educate and inform the public? We are asking
for an article on the front page that would present the public for
the first time with the full picture.
We'll close with this, and thank you
for taking the time to read everything.
We would like to offer you an opportunity to
conduct an interview with the elected officials of our group in
order to present a fair and balanced coverage of this issue and
set the record straight regarding our goals, agendas and the
questions and concerns that we've been trying to raise and our
plans for this group.
Please let us know when you will be available this week. The public
has a right to know what's really happening in this regard and not
be forced to rely on Mr. Wright's and Mr. Wallace's opinions of our
stance.
Thank you. We anxiously await your response.
Pamela Sheeder
President, Citizens for a Clean Curwensville
Carol Machtel
Vice President, Citizens for a Clean
Curwensville
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