“For attempting to protect the air we all breathe by simply following the law and using the same opportunities to provide public comment that hundreds of others have used, Hellam Township as well as individual supervisors have received threatening letters from both Perdue and the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority.”
-- Hellam Township Chairman Supervisor Mike Martin,
as quoted in the below-attached Lancaster, Pa. news article
__________
Here's what the Lancaster County, Pa. Solid Waste Management Authority originally told local residents about its partnering with chicken-seller Perdue on an industrial soybean-to-oil factory:
"It would be a no-discharge facility."
-- James Warner, executive director of the Lancaster County
Solid Waste Management Authority
-- From “Perdue looking at county site next to incinerator,” by Ad Crable, at this updated April 19, 2010 Intelligencer Journal / Lancaster New Era site:
$ $ $ $ $
Here's what local Pa. residents have since learned:
The plant would emit nearly 246,000 pounds of hexane — federally classified as a hazardous air pollutant — into the atmosphere every year, according to an application the company submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
-- From “EDITORIAL: DEP has credibility problem in Hellam Township,” at this August 26, 2015 York, Pa. Dispatch site:
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/opinion/ci_28704599/editorial:-dep-has-credibility-problem-in-hellam-township
$ $ $ $ $
“Perdue has worked with DEP for
five years to ensure this permit.”
-- Gregory Rowe, Vice President of Grain Operations,
Environment, Health & Safety for Perdue AgriBusiness,
as quoted in the Perdue press release, “Perdue AgriBusiness statement on Pennsylvania DEP hearing,” posted at this April 1, 2015 Perdue Farms site:
http://www.perduefarms.com/News_Room/Statements_and_Comments/details.asp?id=1213&title=Perdue%20AgriBusiness%20statement%20on%20Pennsylvania%20DEP%20hearing
$ $ $ $ $
Was Perdue’s application to the Pa. Dept. of Environmental Protection found deficient?
“Yes. It was.”
-- Pa. DEP Secretary John Quigley
in the October 5, 2015 York, Pa. York Daily Record / Sunday News video interview posted here:
...and here:
$ $ $ $ $
“The [waste] authority does not understand why Hellam Township would seek to substitute its judgment for the judgment of DEP.... The authority will have no choice to treat action to delay or block the plan as actions not in good faith and will take any and all actions available to it to protect their interests in this project.”
-- Alex Henderson, attorney for
Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority,
as quoted in the Lancaster, Pa. news article directly below.Henderson is with the Lancaster, Pa. firm of
Hartman Underhill & Brubaker, LLC
___________________________________________
LNP Media Group, Inc.
Lancaster, Pa.
October 13, 2015
Hellam Township says it's been threatened by county waste authority over soybean plant
By Ad Crable
York County’s Hellam Township supervisors say they have been threatened by the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority over a $59 million soybean-processing plant proposed in Lancaster County.
Two weeks ago, Perdue AgriBusiness — which proposed the soybean plant — also suggested that it may pursue legal action against Hellam Township.
“For attempting to protect the air we all breathe by simply following the law and using the same opportunities to provide public comment that hundreds of others have used, Hellam Township as well as individual supervisors have received threatening letters from both Perdue and the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority,” Hellam Supervisor Michael Martin told Conoy Township supervisors at their monthly meeting last Thursday.
Hellam has paid professional consultants more than $20,000 as part of its efforts to highlight how it says the proposed soybean plant will contribute to the region's existing air pollution.
With the help of consultants, the township has sent specific questions to the state Department of Environmental Protection, which is considering Perdue's application for an air-quality permit necessary to build the plant. According to the township, Perdue’s plans to limit air pollution are inadequate to protect public health.
For several years now, Salisbury, Maryland-based Perdue has wanted to build the proposed plant in Conoy Township. The waste authority owns the land and would receive revenue by providing steam and other services from its adjacent trash-to-energy incinerator.
The plant can’t be built until the state Department of Environmental Protection grants Perdue an air-quality permit. Perdue is expected to reply to 41 deficiencies in its permit — largely raised by Hellam’s consultants — any day now.
‘Lost revenues’
Last week, the waste authority’s attorney, Alex Henderson sent a letter to Hellam Township voicing its concerns that Hellam Township intends to pursue legal means to delay the Perdue plant regardless of the outcome of DEP’s review.
The letter states: “The authority does not understand why Hellam Township would seek to substitute its judgment for the judgment of DEP. The Perdue soybean plant is very important to the authority. Delay of the plant costs the authority in lost revenues, waste energy, and injures south central Pennsylvania farmers.”
The authority asked Hellam Township to contact the authority officials to hear “an additional and helpful perspective on the significance of the issues surrounding the soybean plant.”
The letter goes on to say if Hellam Township is unwilling to have “such a meeting and discussion, the authority will have no choice to treat action to delay or block the plan as actions not in good faith and will take any and all actions available to it to protect their interests in this project.”
Asked Monday about what information the authority has for Hellam, authority spokeswoman Kathryn Sandoe said that the authority “has concerns about unnecessary fossil-fuel emissions — i.e., carbon dioxide — from the regenerative thermal oxidizer Hellam Township is insisting upon.”
Hellam has requested that Perdue use such an oxidizer to burn emissions of the pollutant hexane.
Sandoe said the letter to Hellam “was to make clear the authority’s position on protecting its business interest. The next steps would depend on the action of Hellam Township. The letter invited a dialogue, for which we have yet to hear back from Hellam Township.”
'Oxidizer is commonly used'
Hellam’s Martin told Conoy supervisors last week that the oxidizer was a commonly used pollution control device that would reduce the proposed hexane emissions by 95 percent.
“But Perdue has not only rejected out of hand all suggestions we have made and refused to work with and dialogue with us, they have also resorted to threats and outright lies,” Martin said.
Martin said he and another Hellam supervisor, Steve Wolf, had traveled across the Susquehanna to Conoy Township to try to get the supervisors to join with Hellam “to make Perdue’s proposed soybean plant a reality without degrading the air we all breathe and thereby needlessly aggravate breathing problems suffered by our children, our elderly, and ourselves.”
Conoy supervisors politely refused and said they had faith in DEP’s judgment.
Martin did not reply to requests for additional comment made to him Monday on his personal email, cellphone and home phone.
-- From:
__________
Public comments left at the above news site:
Watch the head of DEP say that Perdue's application is deficient. http://www.ydr.com/opinion/ci_28921964/watch-live-at-12-p-m-pa-dep
LCSWMA business is supposed to be trash, not threatening people which it has a long and scary history of doing.
Herb Moyer
So the LCSWMA wants to put poison into our air in collusion with Perdue so that they can make huge profits pushing GMO soybeans and further poisoning people?
Simple. Isolation of soy proteins and fats are routinely done without the use of hexane AT ALL. All parties should agree "in good faith" to allow the plant without the use of hexane. Problem solved.
An integral piece of LCSWMA's plan for generating revenues to help fund their newly acquired debt associated with the purchase of the Harrisburg Incinerator. Too bad, eh?
Shame on Conoy Twp. After all the work they have done to fix up and promote the River Trail, to possibly undermine that effort by not opposing the plant in its current form is quite a contradiction.
These are among related comments now appearing on Facebook:
Zachariah Nauss
If I have to have emissions on my car exhaust, they need to have emissions on their exhaust.
Mary Hendricks Glazier
LCSWMA should focus on recycling and disposal of Lancaster County waste which is its purpose. Why should they use public resources in this way?
4 comments:
Ray..we don't care. This is Delmarva.
So, Ray, if they are going to use the already generated steam from the County incinerator next door, and could send the evaporant hexane back to the incinerator like you wanted before, exactly what are you complaining about now?
That the name on the plant is still "Perdue"?
I think i get it now...
Chicken plants need to be shut down for polluting the environment. When you smell the chicken houses, that is air pollution, and partial contamination of the air. When you drive by a chicken plant and smell it, again it is air pollution. Like it or not.
Please feel free to move to wherever it is you deem to be Nirvana. This is the eastern shore. We grow chickens. Perdue processes chickens. We grow corn and soybeans. Perdue buys corn and soybeans. Don't like it? Leave! It's real easy.
Post a Comment