From our readers
06.26.09 - 08:03 am

Editor:

The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League would accept an invitation to debate Fibrowatt in public on poultry manure incineration and clean energy.

Recent newspaper stories and editorials raised questions concerning how the public is informed about a critical issue facing Sampson County — the incineration of waste to produce electricity. One such project is Fibrowatt’s proposal to burn poultry manure in three North Carolina counties. Sampson is one of those counties.

As one part of our public campaign to present information on toxic air emissions from incineration, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and the Center for Health, Environment and Justice held three public forums in North Carolina. The first two were May 11 and 12 and the third was June 2 in Clinton.

When four Fibrowatt representatives were given the floor at the first forum in Elkin, they asked repeated questions and took up most of the public discussion period. The next night in Troy the same four representatives were asked to give local citizens the opportunity to speak first. Once again Fibrowatt representatives interrupted the presentations.

At the June 2 forum in Clinton, which was attended by over fifty people, only one Fibrowatt employee came and he left shortly after asking a question. Again, the intent of these forums was not to engage in a public debate with Fibrowatt. The purpose was to present information about incineration and toxic air pollution.

Unfortunately, little public debate took place in 2007 when the General Assembly adopted renewable energy legislation. The provision requiring poultry litter to generate electricity was included without adequate discussion in the media. Fibrowatt’s lobbyists, however, actively worked to pass this bill.

Other biomass materials, everything from railroad ties to hog waste, present the much larger question of how North Carolina will expand renewable energy while protecting air quality and community health. Regardless of where you live, you should be aware that renewable energy is not necessarily clean energy. Burning poultry manure is an example, but certainly not the only example.

From our organization’s perspective, the state is ill prepared to regulate the variety of companies lining up to get a piece of North Carolina’s renewable energy pie. The question of how to encourage non-polluting sources, like wind and solar, remains unanswered while polluting waste burners calculate how to get under the state’s air pollution bar. As the people who attended the forums learned, pollution comes out of Fibrowatt smokestacks. Those emissions matter and they matter most to the communities where the incinerators are built.

But the environment and public health are not the only issues. Economics will have a major impact on North Carolina’s renewable energy future. For now the regulatory playing field is tilted toward those who would pollute in the name of “green” energy. We face a future of increasing costs and dirtier air.

The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League does not have a public relations firm to spin the news. Nor do we have lobbyists and lawyers to write legislation and negotiate permits. We depend on people in the targeted communities, people who ask for our advice and expertise, to question decisions made by others that directly affect them. Information presented at the forums empowered the people there to get involved and challenge those decisions. We have worked this way for twenty-five years.

Public debates about burning poultry manure to make electricity will give everyone involved the opportunity to clear the air on what is in the best interest of both Sampson County and its neighbors. Our League welcomes such debates. They are long overdue.

David Mickey
Blue RidgeEnvironmental Defense League

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