SADSBURY TOWNSHIP —
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One thing was made crystal clear Tuesday night. Area residents expect both Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and Crawford Renewable Energy to keep their promises when it comes to the quality of local air. “We’re relying on you — don’t screw it up,” was the rather blunt way one speaker summed it up, but others echoed similar sentiments throughout the evening.
Chairs were in place to seat almost 400, but only about half that number gathered in the Conneaut Lake High School auditorium Tuesday evening to discuss the environmental impact of Meadville Power Station, the $350 million tires-to-energy plant proposed for Greenwood Township’s Keystone Regional Industrial Park that would use tire-derived fuel to generate 90 megawatts of electricity.
No one took a poll, but the response to various questions and responses indicated an audience fairly evenly divided between supporters and opponents.
Half-hour presentations by DEP personnel about the air quality permitting process now underway, and by CRE about the proposed facility itself were followed by a lengthy question-and-answer session that was occasionally contentious.
In response to a question about pollutants that would be released on an annual basis from the facility, CRE’s air quality expert, Joseph Pezze of the Hillcrest Group, held up one of the small fluorescent lightbulbs widely marketed as lower-energy replacements for incandescent bulbs. “If you broke one of these bulbs in your house, you would be exposed to more mercury that you would be exposed to if you stood at the point of maximum concentration (of mercury emitted by the proposed plant) for 70 years,” Pezze said.
“If you burn one 5-pound log in your fireplace, you will put out as much dioxin as our plant will put out in two hours,” Pezze continued, noting that the diesel trucks traveling along I-79 put more dioxin into the surrounding air than the plant will. “There are dioxins in wood and diesel fuel and natural gas,” Pezze aid. “Anytime you combust anything, you produce these chemicals.”
Although public meetings or hearings are part of DEP’s permitting process, the meeting sponsored by the department Tuesday night wasn’t a formal part of the process. However, because of the high level of public interest the project has inspired, DEP personnel decided that there was no time like the present for a public gathering.
“It’s not uncommon for the department to be involved with issues where passionately-held views come into conflict,” DEP spokesperson Freda Tarbell said.
Northwest Regional Director Kelly Burch agreed. “This meeting is not required,” he explained. “We’re hosting this meeting because of community interest in the project.”
At the present time, CRE’s air plan approval application has completed the administrative review process. With all the necessary paperwork in physical order, the technical review of the content of the application is expected to begin in November.
“This is not something you pull out of a Crackerjack box,” John Guth, DEP’s air quality program manager, said of the technical review, which ordinarily takes several months to complete.
During the technical review, a DEP air pollution control engineer will review the application to make sure it’s technically sound and complete. If technical deficiencies are discovered, the company is informed and given an opportunity to provide the information necessary for the review to continue.
If the information contained in the application and additional information submitted in response to technical deficiency letters is acceptable, a draft plan approval is developed. “This is when public comments will be considered and a meeting or hearing will be conducted,” Guth explained. After the comments have been taken into consideration and all concerns have been addressed, the plan approval can be issued.
However, even once the plan approval has been issued, an appeal can be filed with the Environmental Hearing Board within a 30-day period.
“We’re looking at what they’re proposing to make sure clean air remains clean,” Guth said. While the department’s job is to make sure the facility minimizes its emissions, he added, it won’t be totally emission-free. “Any facility we review has emissions,” he said. “They minimize emissions — but they cannot stop them.”
Air quality is not the only area where permits are necessary. As the process moves forward, for example, CRE will have to describe to DEP how it will manage the waste tires it will use as fuel for the plant and how sediment and erosion will be controlled. According to Burch, the approval process is a group process that does not allow the air quality permit to be issued until the other necessary permits have been approved.
Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com.
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