Biomass Moratorium Called for in Oregon

- by Save Our Rur­al Oregon

Due to the Clean Air Act vio­la­tions both Kla­math Falls and Lake­view, Ore­gon have expe­ri­enced this win­ter, Save Our Rur­al Ore­gon is request­ing an emer­gency mora­to­ri­um on pro­posed bio­mass and bio­fu­els projects in both communities.

Let­ters have been for­ward­ed to the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency and Ore­gon Gov­er­nor John Kitzhaber, ask­ing for their sup­port of an emer­gency mora­to­ri­um on bio­mass and bio­fu­els projects in both Kla­math Falls and Lake­view. The let­ter asks for a stay on the issuance of any new or mod­i­fied air qual­i­ty dis­charge per­mit relat­ed to bio­mass and bio­fu­els projects and on award­ing site cer­tifi­cates on those projects not yet adju­di­cat­ed by the Ore­gon Ener­gy Facil­i­ties Sit­ing Council.

“If they were already built, bio­mass projects pro­posed for both Kla­math Falls and Lake­view would not only have made the air qual­i­ty sit­u­a­tion much worse but under antic­i­pat­ed sanc­tions placed upon us by EPA and DEQ start­ing in 2014, the bio­mass facil­i­ties would be exempt from shut­ting down and allowed to con­tin­ue to burn while we cit­i­zens would be fined for heat­ing our own homes,” said Paul Fouch, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Save Our Rur­al Ore­gon. “If the upcom­ing sanc­tions were now in effect, these plants would nev­er be built. We need to stop the place­ment of these pro­posed facil­i­ties before they are built, find solu­tions to our cur­rent air qual­i­ty con­cerns, and recon­sid­er these projects and their place­ment in the future.” 

Bio­mass ener­gy facil­i­ties are planned for Kla­math Falls and Lake­view, com­mu­ni­ties that both have seri­ous vio­la­tions of the Clean Air Act – this win­ter the worst con­cen­tra­tions of fine par­tic­u­late mat­ter (PM 2.5) in the entire Unit­ed States. The 24 hour aver­age PM 2.5 lev­els in Lake­view from 1/15/13–1/23/13 were 5 times the nation­al stan­dard of 35 micro­grams per cubic meter, approach­ing 300 micro­grams per cubic meter hourly. These are com­pa­ra­ble to the well-known air qual­i­ty con­di­tions in Bejing, China.

Kla­math Falls expe­ri­enced sim­i­lar con­di­tions, as air qual­i­ty was so poor that the EPA stan­dard for PM2.5 for the entire year was exceed­ed by Jan­u­ary 19, putting Kla­math Falls out of com­pli­ance for 2014. This means that Kla­math Falls will be fac­ing sanc­tions in the form of emis­sions restric­tions from indus­try and cit­i­zen wood burn­ing activ­i­ties, and restric­tions on any new or mod­i­fied air qual­i­ty per­mits that increase over­all emissions.

Kla­math Bio Ener­gy is in the final stage of sit­ing an ener­gy facil­i­ty in Kla­math Falls, of which SORO is cur­rent­ly involved in a Con­test­ed Hear­ing, soon to be heard and decid­ed by the Ore­gon Ener­gy Facil­i­ties Sit­ing Coun­cil. Iber­dro­la Renew­ables has two projects under­way – a facil­i­ty in Lake­view where they are cur­rent­ly seek­ing to triple the amount of emis­sions from its orig­i­nal air dis­charge per­mit and a sec­ond project adja­cent to the pro­posed KBE facil­i­ty in Kla­math Falls. Giv­en the socio-eco­nom­ic con­di­tions of these com­mu­ni­ties, SORO believes the pro­posed place­ment of these facil­i­ties is unfair from a social jus­tice and pub­lic health per­spec­tive, and will make these eco­nom­i­cal­ly depressed com­mu­ni­ties that already have the most severe health prob­lems in the state of Ore­gon de fac­to sac­ri­fice zones.

“The con­se­quences to the health and eco­nom­ic well-being of our cit­i­zen­ry are enor­mous giv­en the cur­rent emis­sions lev­els, much less with the addi­tion­al fine par­tic­u­late mat­ter from a bio­mass indus­try that does not have a good track record meet­ing their Clean Air Act oblig­a­tions,” said Fouch.

“We under­stand the posi­tion of our Con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion and local elect­ed lead­ers, that bio­mass may pro­mote eco­nom­ic revival through the for­est jobs that these projects rep­re­sent. How­ev­er, EPA and DEQ have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect the health and well being of the cit­i­zens of Kla­math Falls and Lakeview.”

For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact: Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Paul Fouch, PE Pres­i­dent of Save Our Rur­al Ore­gon, PO Box 774—Keno, Or 97627 mvbiomass@gmail.com http://stopklamathbiomass.wordpress.com.