By Mary Spicer
Meadville Tribune
SADSBURY TOWNSHIP —
The region’s top environmental regulator said he believes the proposed tires-to-energy plant in Greenwood Township “will be the most carefully-monitored facility in northwestern Pennsylvania” during his comments Wednesday night at a public meeting and hearing on the plant.
Other state Department of Environmental Protection officials attempted to put the health risks and emissions of the plant in perspective, despite an audience whose comments were clearly skeptical.
By the end of the evening Crawford Renewable Energy completed another step in the process of obtaining an air quality permit for its proposed plant in the Keystone Regional Industrial Park.
The permit itself will not be issued by the DEP until the plant is built and operating. However, a critical step in that process is the issuance of a draft plan approval detailing conditions CRE must follow during the construction and startup process to ensure compliance with DEP regulations.
On June 25, DEP published a notice of intent to issue the plan approval.
A public meeting to discuss the overall project followed by a public hearing focusing exclusively on the air plan approval drew more than 70 area residents to Conneaut Lake High School Wednesday night. The sessions were conducted in response to requests from community residents.
Seven members of the CRE team and seven DEP representatives were present for the combined session, which lasted for almost three hours.
During the public meeting, DEP representatives explained the permitting process, noting that the draft plan approval is 132 pages long.
According to John Guth, air quality program manager for DEP’s Northwest Regional Office, the proposed electrical generation plant utilizing tire derived fuel in two circulating fluidized bed boilers will generate up to 90 net megawatts of electrical power. “We consider it a ‘major facility’ because of the emissions it will generate,” Guth said. “Things are going to be released — they cannot be eliminated.”
Although there will be emissions from the plant, DEP personnel stressed repeatedly that neither DEP or the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which is also reviewing the application, consider the level of emissions to be “significant.”
When one Crawford County resident expressed concerns about the multiple tons of pollutants the plan was expected to produce, Guth noted that one car driven 15,000 miles will produce 6 tons of pollutants per year.
In response to questions about the health impact of the facility, DEP employee Craig Evans explained that based on the projected emissions, two in 10 million people would experience increased risk of cancer over the lifetime of the facility. “That risk is very small,” he said.
Other questions were raised about the ability of DEP to adequately monitor and control the facility, the ability of the owners to secure an adequate supply of tires, the reliability of the data presented by developers of the project and the impact of the project on the area’s water supply.
“I have to believe that this will be the most carefully-monitored facility in northwestern Pennsylvania,” Kelly Burch, DEP’s regional director, observed as the questioning wound to a close.
Nine residents from Crawford and Erie counties presented testimony during the hearing portion of the evening.
Formal responses to issues raised will be prepared by DEP and released to the public, although a timeframe was not established. Additional written comments will be accepted until Aug. 8. Comments should be addressed to John Guth, Air Quality Program Manager, at jguth@state.pa.us.
Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com.
