Many communities are welcoming ethanol plants as a way to bring business and jobs to the area. Often, after these plants begin operation, many problems begin to arise, mostly because little foresight and research by community officials and plant developers before construction began. Our goal is to make sure that doesn't happen here in Dunkirk!
What are the potential problems?- Offensive odor and emissions which can cause
respiratory problems.
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Need for 2.5 mile evacuation plan - this would put the hospital among other services out of commission. Not only is a potential for fire an inherent danger, but also (and more likely) ammonia and other chemical spills.
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Water use - the plan is to take it out of Lake Erie and return it back to Lake Erie for the cooling process. How will this affect fishing and other lake activities?
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Increased rail traffic in an area where there have been 2 derailments in the last 10 years.
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Increased air pollution. Don't we have enough as it is? In May of this year, the EPA relaxed pollution standards specifically for ethanol plants, so they are allowed to pollute more.
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Increased truck traffic. Also a proposal to build a road from Route 5 to the plant. Whose homes will be affected by this?
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Light pollution. Those of us in the rural area nearby can say goodbye to star gazing at the black sky at night.
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ground pollution from chemical runoff, in an area with several protected wetlands and a popular fishing stream.
Naturally, NRG's officials claim that the plant they are building will be the cleanest, greenest, safest plant ever built. They also claim their technology is the newest, which also means it is unproven.
Of course they will tell us this, and it might even be true, however, they can build the cleanest plant possible but without maintenance and upkeep, will it remain clean? What if they sell it to another company that is not committed to upkeep and high standards? And then there is the possibility that it won't be clean at all from the beginning. Many communities are getting these same promises and finding out that the promises don't hold up once the plant goes into operation. Milton Wisconsin's plant, which is very new and had all the promises of being green and eco-friendly is now contributing odor and pollution and dust to local residents.
As another example, some of these plants employ about 30-40 people, and local residents have never seen the company advertise locally to fill those jobs. The promise of jobs doesn't mean much if they are bringing in people from out of the area to fill them.
The point is that once this plant is built, there is no turning back. It would seem that a lot of our local officials aren't interested in doing any research of their own on this until it's an issue sitting on their desk. They would like to put it off until NRG files it's official paperwork with the DEC, but by then, it will be too late to properly educate themselves on the potential impact!
Here it is up to YOU to contact your officials and neighbors and local business people and urge them to become knowledgeable so that they aren't all caught with their pants down when this is officially filed.
