At Pa. DEP hearing: Families and business owners fight Perdue's proposed pollution: By Ray Wallace

Held in Bainbridge, Lancaster County, Pa. across the Susquehanna River from Three Mile Island, this March 31 public hearing concerns the application of Pa.-taxpayer-subsidized, Maryland chicken seller Perdue to add more factory pollution to the Susquehanna Valley's already seriously polluted air. 

Under U.S. law, Lancaster and its downwind neighboring counties are called "non attainment" areas because all their air is already dirtier than allowed by the U.S. Clean Air Act. Though long called "The Garden Spot of America," this area is now among the most polluted in the entire U.S.

Perdue has for years been seeking permission from the Pa. Dept. of Environmental Protection to save money by needlessly releasing yet more toxic waste gases across the Susquehanna Valley -- from a proposed, industrial soybean-processing factory.

The resident owner of Nissley Vineyards and Winery in Bainbridge, Pa., Judith Nissley addresses the Pa. DEP at yesterday's public hearing. She:

     hired an environmental firm to look at the plant and cited some their objections. She said emissions from the plant will exceed what Perdue has stated, that there could be explosion hazards and that the environmental rights amendment to state constitution that guarantees people the right to clean air has not been adhered to.

     "The burden is on DEP to show that this project complies with the amendment," she said.

     That, she added, has not been done.

     -- From this March 31, 2015 Lancaster, Pa. news site:

http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/praised-and-bashed-perdue-soybean-plant-gets-one-final-public/article_94571122-d80e-11e4-81be-a360effdcc89.html

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     June Evans of Wrightsville was one of several people who worried about hexane being pumped into the air at the rate, Perdue concedes, of 208 tons a year. Long term exposure to hexane, she said, effects the central nervous system and causes nerve damage.

     -- From this March 31, 2015 Lancaster, Pa. news site:

http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/praised-and-bashed-perdue-soybean-plant-gets-one-final-public/article_94571122-d80e-11e4-81be-a360effdcc89.html

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Perdue's March 31 press statement claims its hexane-releasing factory would provide “environmental benefits" by limiting truck miles that local farmers need to travel. 

Oops, Perdue forgot to mention the other, cited 130,000 trucks its factory would attract from everywhere, including from out of state, which would overwhelm local quality of life in rural Conoy Township, which has one main road:

     "It will be gridlock," one opponent told DEP representatives during Tuesday night's hearing. "It will be a traffic nightmare. It will destroy the quality of life for everyone in this area."

     -- From this March 31, 2015 York Daily Record site:

http://www.ydr.com/business/ci_27824685/perdues-plans-soybean-processing-plant-lancaster-county-discussed

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Fred P. Osman, P.E., of Osman Environmental Solutions, LLC told the DEP hearing:

     "Do you think anyone living around here wants to see another 130,000 trucks on [route] 441? Are you an idiot?"

     -- From the March 31, 2015 Harrisburg, Pa. CBS 21 News video posted here:

http://local21news.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/proposed-soybean-plant-draws-controversy-16610.shtml

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Hellam Township, Pa. resident Katina Snyder opposes Perdue's dumping hundreds of tons of the neurotoxin hexane yearly into the air of her York County community, which is situated directly across the Susquehanna River from Perdue's proposed Lancaster County factory site.

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Perdue is asking DEP permission to addto Susquehanna Valley air:

     more than 4,500 tons of greenhouse gases a year, including 208 tons of hexane, which is federally classified as hazardous.

     Patricia Longenecker lives near Elizabethtown and says between the county's incinerator and this proposed plant, there would just be too many particulates in the air.

     "We've got the incinerator coughing out particulate into our air. For almost sixty years, we've had Brunner's Island, still spewing particulate."

     Longenecker says she wants to help farmers, but not at the expense of the environment.

     "And I think if farmers would stand together, that would have a lot of weight in forming opinions and changing the course of something like this."...

     [Though Governor Wolf has failed to answer repeated questions about it] an $8.75 million state grant first awarded by Governor Rendell [and then also approved by Governor Corbett] is expected to be available for the project.

      -- From “Lancaster County community divided over soybean plant,” by Ben Allen, at this March 31, 2015 WITF News site:

http://www.witf.org/news/2015/03/lancaster-county-community-divided-over-soybean-plant.php