Will Gov. Tom Wolf let Jim Perdue permanently poison Pa. air with hexane? By Ray Wallace

Chicken-seller Jim Perdue's proposed, industrial

soybean-to-oil factory in the Susquehanna Valley:

     "would send nearly 246,000 pounds of hexane into the atmosphere every year, according to an application the company submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Hexane is federally classified as a hazardous air pollutant.

     "The DEP will decide if the plant should be required to have equipment to reduce the amount of hexane released into the air."

     -- From the front-page news article by Greg Gross in the August 21, 2015 print edition of the York, Pa. York Dispatch 

   

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York Daily Record/Sunday News
York, Pa.
August 20, 2015
   

Questions for Perdue, DEP and Gov. Wolf on hexane pollution

     The people of the York-Lancaster region should be aware that the Pennsylvania DEP is now reviewing Perdue’s application for an Air Quality Permit which would allow Perdue to build a soybean extraction plant in Conoy Township without installing a regenerative thermal oxidizer (RTO) or other pollution control device on their meal dryer and cooler systems from which large amounts of toxic hexane would be released directly into the air we all must breathe.

     The Clean Air Act gives the Pennsylvania DEP authority to require that Perdue install this thermal oxidizer if it can be shown to be technically feasible. Perdue is claiming that it is not technically feasible, but the DEP has been given sound reasons from many professional engineers which refute Perdue’s dubious claims. According to one of the top engineers at DEP, this thermal oxidizer is capable of reducing the toxic hexane emissions in the dryer-cooler exhaust stream by approximately 95 percent. I believe most reasonable persons would agree that this would be a highly desirable outcome of DEP’s review since it would greatly benefit those in our region, especially young children, who suffer from debilitating and fatal lung diseases such as asthma and COPD.

     The DEP is now faced with a judgment call with regard to requiring Perdue to install this thermal oxidizer.

     Should they rule in favor of Perdue and allow them to further pollute the air in our region by not requiring them to install this device? Or should DEP serve the public interest by requiring that Perdue install this thermal oxidizer?

     In a region where it is already hard to breathe and our residents must stay indoors on pollution action days, why would Perdue or DEP want to make it even harder for us all to breathe? According to the American Lung Association, there are over 100,000 persons in the York-Lancaster region suffering from asthma and other lung diseases. Why would the DEP or Perdue choose to make these people, especially young children, suffer even more by allowing lung-damaging toxic hexane waste to be dumped into our already polluted air?

     I believe that any reasonable person would agree that protecting the health of our citizens should come before protecting the profit margin of corporations like Perdue. If DEP is uncertain about making this decision, shouldn’t Gov. Tom Wolf step in and make it clear that DEP officials should first and foremost protect the health of the public and require Perdue to install this RTO?

     Warren Evans, Hellam Township

     -- From:
http://www.ydr.com/letters/ci_28673870/questions-perdue-dep-and-gov-wolf-hexane-pollution

NOTE:
Warren Evans has a Harvard Medical School doctorate in biochemistry. He is retired from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.