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| 1/28/2005 1:55:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Opponents of the Heartland tire plant, many of whom testified at the MPCA hearing in St. Paul Tuesday night, celebrate the 6 to 1 vote by the Citizens’ Board calling for an environmental impact study. The meeting lasted 7 hours, with more than 100 people in attendance.
Photo by John Torgrimson |
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EIS ordered on Heartland
By John Torgrimson
Every once in awhile David gets lucky and beats Goliath. Such was the case Tuesday night in St. Paul when the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Citizens’ Board rejected a PCA staff recommendation and ordered that an Environmental Impact Statement was necessary before an air permit could be granted to the proposed Heartland tire-burning plant in Preston.
Voting 6 to 1, following seven hours of testimony from more than 40 people, the Citizens’ Board passed a resolution stating that the Heartland Energy & Recycling LLC tire plant has the potential for significant environmental effect.
The plant, which would burn 10 million scrap tires annually using fluid bed boiler technology planned to generate 20 megawatts of electricity.
The action by the Citizens’ Board reversed nearly two years of PCA findings of fact supporting the technology behind the plant.
On February 25, 2003, the PCA decided that a basic Environmental Assessment Worksheet was sufficient in meeting the plant’s obligations for an air permit and that a more thorough EIS was not needed. This decision was challenged by Southeastern Minnesotans for Environmental Protection (SEMEP) in court and on February 17, 2004, Olmsted County District Judge Joseph Wieners remanded the matter back to the PCA saying that the regulatory agency should take a “hard look” at its findings of fact regarding the plant. This resulted in the PCA staff drafting a Supplemental Environmental Assessment Worksheet responding to the Judge’s order. This was what the Citizen’s Board turned down on Tuesday.
Layer upon layer of testimony was given by a number of people, including representatives from SEMEP, Citizens Against Pollution, Southern Minnesota Action Committee, the League of Women Voters, and the Sierra Club. Resolutions calling for an EIS from several communities, townships and counties were read into the record. Participants came from as far away as Onalaska, Wisconsin and Decorah, Iowa.
Particularly crucial, was testimony from three doctors from the Zumbro Valley Medical Society (ZVMS) which challenged the risk analysis carried out by PCA and Minnesota Department of Health staff. The medical society includes health professionals from Dodge, Fillmore, Houston, Olmsted and Winona counties.
Dr. Roy House, a pediatrician from Rochester, focused on particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in size that would not be captured through pollution control devices.
“This is more like a gas, similar to cigarette smoke that will lodge in the lungs and may cross over into the blood stream,” House testified. “Particulate matter has been correlated to decreased lung growth in children.”
House said that the Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that health standards regarding particulate matter should be revised and reviewed.
House also talked about the bio-accumulation of lead from emissions.
“There are far too many unanswered health issues. And particulate matter is on top of the list,” House said.
House was followed by Dr. Fred Nobrega, the director of the ZVMS, who talked about dioxin and mercury. Nobrega noted that Rochester already has the highest incident of asthma in the state of Minnesota.
“Mercury is an element that vaporizes and is the most difficult to capture from pollution control,” Nobrega said.
Dr. John Hodgson, a specialist in industrial toxicology, then focused on the historical and potential health effects of emissions.
“The criteria (for an air permit) can only be adequately filled by an EIS,” Hodgson concluded.
The motion calling for an EIS, which was presented by Dr. Daniel Foley of the Citizens’ Board, highlighted the fact that there were unresolved issues related to public health and the environment given the nature of the plant.
Foley, referring to the potential Heartland discharge as the “soup down there,” cited in particular:
•the distribution of heavy metals;
•the discharge of particulate matter generated from the plant and diesel transport that would deliver the tires;
•the accumulation of dioxin, furons and mercury;
•the technology surrounding the fluid bed boiler using tire-derived fuel;
•concerns over the storage of hazardous ash residue;
•and the reversibility of pollution, in particular mercury.
PCA Commissioner Sheryl Corrigan, who chaired the meeting, was the only member of the Citizens’ Board to vote against Foley’s resolution.
On two occasions Corrigan recessed the meeting to allow PCA staff time to address specific questions raised in the testimony.
Heartland developer Bob Maust, his attorney Andy Brown, and project consultants, did not testify except to answer specific questions.
When the roll call vote was announced, the room erupted in applause and celebration. Many in attendance seemed stunned by the decision as the Citizens’ Board is not known for going against the recommendations of its staff.
The call for an EIS for Heartland comes almost three years to the day that the Preston City Council voted to grant Heartland a variance for a 210 foot smokestack for the plant. The subsequent publicity led to some of the first challenges to the plant by citizens who started attending council meetings and asking questions. On Tuesday, their hard work and perseverance seems to have paid off.
As one celebrant said after the vote, “this is what democracy is all about.”
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