Plant application should be denied
Chicken seller Perdue should withdraw its application for a state Department of Environmental Protection permit to pollute our local air with toxic hexane that will be emitted from the soybean oil extraction facility they are proposing to build in Conoy Township.
This facility is an unnecessary threat to public health, since soybean oil can be prepared from soybeans using the non-hexane expeller method. Perdue claims that the expeller method is less profitable than the hexane method. But isn’t this extra profit being made at the expense of taxpayers who will have to foot the bill for the potential health impacts of Perdue’s toxic hexane pollution? To my knowledge, Perdue has not provided the public or DEP with an objective cost-benefit analysis comparing the two methods.
Do we need to pollute our air with toxic hexane in order to benefit the soybean farmers of our region?
Unlike Perdue, other businesses, such as chicken-seller Bell and Evans in nearby Lebanon County, do not feed hexane-extracted soybean meal to their chickens. This business is now expanding and plans to provide a market to our local soybean farmers equal to that of Perdue’s — without adding toxic hexane to the already polluted air in our region.
The proposed Perdue facility is unhealthy, obsolete and unnecessary. Perdue should withdraw its DEP permit application, and Gov. Tom Wolf should deny the company’s request for unnecessary taxpayer funding under the R-Cap grant program and use this grant money for businesses that will not use our air for a toxic dumping ground in order to make a profit at taxpayers’ expense.
Warren H. Evans, Ph.D.
Retired Cancer Research Biochemist
Hellam Township
10 comments:
I am not a friend of Perdue's. They ruined a lot of lives when they worked the system to get rid of a large number of long term employees.
That said we have lived near that soybean plant for more then 3 decades an there is no indication of excessive cancer in any area within 3 miles of the plant.
Wherever there's a Perdue operation it hurts the area -- just look at Salisbury.
Ray Wallace:
Please tell Dr. Evans that he has Maryland to blame for this -- it won't allow that kind of thing.
6:41 --
Have you any significant data or is that just your impression of things basted on your experience and info?
6:41 - As one of the folks that was relocated to here a while before being released - it was interesting to see how they did it...multiple batches in different departments in different time-spans - probably just under the DOL reporting threshold.
Like most of the folks in that situation, if the skill-set and you are portable, almost immediate reemployment is possible.....just not on the Eastern Shore. Thanks goodness I had kept my job hunting package active even after I arrived here.....
They are still having trouble getting and keeping good talent - word is out that this isn't a good job environment and the company isn't what it was!
Dr. Evans and Ray, either offer up a viable alternative method of soybean oil extraction or STFU. I live a mile downwind of their Zion Road facility and have been for 25 years. Hexane is used every day there in a closed process. I am 60 years old and plenty healthy. We're tired of your tirades that offer no solution.
7:46 Do you? You environmental terrorists all squawk the same. Sound like parrots.
As an elected official I have always Supported Perdue. That was until they promoted Jake Day's father to President. Jake Day got a job there and has a free ride at other employees expense. I will never support Perdue on any issue again. Jim Perdue, Screw YOU!
8:56 you are clueless.
7:40 do you seriously believe that?
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