Category: Blog entry

  • (October 2013) ANTI-BIOMASS CAMPAIGN CALL RECORDING & NOTES: “Debunking Wildfire Myths”

    Anti-Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tion Cam­paign — Nation­al Con­fer­ence Call  Thurs­day, Octo­ber 3, 2013 at 6pm EST TOPIC: “Debunk­ing Wild­fire Myths” RECORDING: Debunk­ing Wild­fire Myths — Octo­ber 2013 We dis­cuss how we can improve our advo­ca­cy about wild­fire and for­est prac­tices and how those top­ics are insep­a­ra­ble from bio­mass incineration.  What’s chang­ing with our West­ern U.S. for­est ecosys­tems, pub­lic bud­gets, and wood…

  • USC Reaches $24 million Settlement with Developer of Closed Biomass Facility

    USC Reach­es $24 mil­lion Set­tle­ment with Devel­op­er of Closed Bio­mass Facility - by Andrew Shain, Octo­ber 4, 2013. Source: Rock Hill Herald The Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na has reached a $24 mil­lion set­tle­ment with Wis­con­sin-based John­son Con­trols over a failed bio­mass pow­er plant. The agree­ment calls for John­son to pay the remain­ing $14.4 mil­lion owed on the $19.1…

  • Kentucky Biomass Incinerator would “adversely affect rate-payers”

    Ken­tucky Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tor Would “Adverse­ly affect rate-payers” - By Eri­ca Peter­son, Octo­ber 9, 2013 Source: Ken­tucky Pub­lic Radio Lex­ing­ton-based ecoPow­er wants to build a bio­mass plant in Per­ry Coun­ty. The plant would burn wood scraps to cre­ate electricity. The util­i­ty Ken­tucky Pow­er wants to buy all that elec­tric­i­ty, and the state Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion will decide whether to…

  • Lawsuits Likely as EPA Declares US Ethanol Blend Wall a ‘Reality’

    Law­suits Like­ly as EPA Declares US Ethanol Blend Wall a ‘Real­i­ty’ - by Cezary Pod­kul, Octo­ber 11, 2013. Source: Reuters With two words, the U.S. envi­ron­ment reg­u­la­tor may be hand­ing oil refin­ers the biggest win of a long bat­tle to beat back the seem­ing­ly inex­orable rise of ethanol fuel. In a leaked pro­pos­al that would sig­nif­i­cant­ly scale…

  • Report on Genetically Engineered “Factory” Trees

    Genet­i­cal­ly Engi­neered “Fac­to­ry Trees”: Sus­tain­able Way For­ward or Dan­ger­ous Diversion? -by Cen­ter for Food Safety Cen­ter for Food Safe­ty (CFS) is pleased to offer a new report, Genet­i­cal­ly Engi­neered Trees: The New Fron­tier of Biotech­nol­o­gy, which explores poten­tial eco­log­i­cal and socioe­co­nom­ic haz­ards of genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered (GE) trees. As you may know, the U.S. Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture is con­sid­er­ing whether…

  • Protecting Land From Gas Companies

    -by Dough Pflugh Supreme Court Pre­serves Vic­to­ry Over Oil/Gas Development It is reward­ing to suc­cess­ful­ly wrap-up a case. This can be espe­cial­ly true when our work pro­tects spe­cial places, pre­serv­ing them for future gen­er­a­tions. It is a plea­sure to be able to point at a map and say, “Those are the places that were saved.” The…

  • Biomass Incinerator Noise a Nightmare to Neighbors

    Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tor Noise a Night­mare to Neighbors  A “con­tin­u­ous roar.” Jet planes “revving” up for take­off. Being on an “air­craft car­ri­er dur­ing oper­a­tions.” That’s how neigh­bors of the Gainesville Renew­able Ener­gy Cen­ter (GREC) describe the noise com­ing from the 100 megawatt bio­mass incinerator’s ini­tial test runs. Air pol­lu­tion, cli­mate dis­rup­tion, for­est degra­da­tion, and water con­sump­tion are the most…

  • Victims of the Biomass Plant

    Vic­tims of the Bio­mass Plant  - by Judy Hooker The city of Gainesville gov­ern­ment isn’t the intel­li­gent, for­ward think­ing group I would have imag­ined. Is it some­how cool to vic­tim­ize an oth­er­wise beau­ti­ful com­mu­ni­ty for finan­cial gain? Peo­ple and wildlife alike will pay a huge price for your cal­lous actions. I am speak­ing of the Turkey…

  • OSHA: Berlin, NH Biomass Contractors Put Workers At Risk

    OSHA: Berlin, NH Bio­mass Con­trac­tors Put Work­ers At Risk - by Chris Jensen, Octo­ber 21, 2013. Source: New Hamp­shire Pub­lic Radio Fed­er­al offi­cials say six com­pa­nies build­ing a bio­mass plant in Berlin have put work­ers at risk by not fol­low­ing safe­ty regulations. The Occu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty Admin­is­tra­tion pro­pos­es fin­ing the com­pa­nies about $280,000 for thir­ty-one “will­ful, seri­ous and repeat vio­la­tions…

  • Questions Remain About Future of Texas Biomass Incinerator

    Ques­tions remain about future of bio­mass facility - by Rhon­da Oaks, Octo­ber 20, 2013. Source: The Lufkin News Since a judge’s rul­ing in May allowed an out­side man­age­ment com­pa­ny to assume con­trol of the idled Aspen Pow­er plant in North Lufkin, many cit­i­zens have ques­tioned the sta­tus of the 57-megawatt facil­i­ty that was intend­ed to be the…