Facts Needed on Penrose, NC Biomass Proposal

- by Rick and Jean­nie Falknor

Tran­syl­va­nia Coun­ty res­i­dents deserve all the facts about the pro­posed bio­fu­el plant at the air­port site in Pen­rose [North Car­oli­na], espe­cial­ly the neg­a­tive impacts such a busi­ness can have on our county.

First, bio­mass pow­er gen­er­a­tion is a dirty indus­try. Accord­ing to a Wall Street Jour­nal-cit­ed study con­duct­ed in ear­ly 2012, of the 107 oper­at­ing bio­mass plants in the Unit­ed States, 85 have been cit­ed by fed­er­al or state reg­u­la­tors for the vio­la­tion of clean air or water stan­dards laws over the past 5 years. And the dirty real­i­ty goes fur­ther. These bio­mass gen­er­a­tors have been shown to release high lev­els of fine par­tic­u­late air pol­lu­tion that can cause breath­ing prob­lems, and volatile organ­ic com­pounds linked to cancer.

Sec­ond­ly, the sourc­ing of bio­mass mate­r­i­al to feed these burn­ers will become prob­lem­at­ic. At bio­mass gen­er­a­tors in oth­er towns, oper­a­tors have resort­ed to burn­ing old tires and chick­en waste to keep their burn­ers going. Does this mean that our coun­ty com­mis­sion­ers have agreed to let garbage from sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties be trucked into our coun­ty for disposal?

How many peo­ple will want to return to our com­mu­ni­ty to spend their dol­lars or relo­cate their fam­i­lies and busi­ness­es if they’re greet­ed by an indus­tri­al waste burn­ing facil­i­ty as they cross into Tran­syl­va­nia Coun­ty? How many tru­ly clean indus­tries that rely on clean water and clean air will want to make Tran­syl­va­nia Coun­ty their home if we agree to accept a dirty industry?

Pro­posed bio­mass projects in Flori­da and Indi­ana have already been reject­ed by local cit­i­zens. And the North Car­oli­na Acad­e­my of Fam­i­ly Physi­cians has warned reg­u­la­tors that pol­lut­ed air from bio­mass plants could “increase the risk of pre­ma­ture death, asth­ma, chron­ic bron­chi­tis and heart disease.” 

This is not the lega­cy we want to leave for our com­mu­ni­ty’s children.

Tran­syl­va­nia Coun­ty gov­ern­ment and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment lead­ers owe our com­mu­ni­ty rig­or­ous pub­lic dis­cus­sions and infor­ma­tion about this pro­posed busi­ness. When will that hap­pen? Hope­ful­ly, before it is too late.