Residents Voice New Concerns on Gainesville, FL Biomass Incinerator

-  by Mor­gan Watkins, August 5, 2014, Gainesville Sun

Local res­i­dents wor­ried about the bio­mass plant showed up Tues­day evening for a pub­lic meet­ing on its draft Title V air oper­a­tion per­mit, which could be approved this fall, to make their con­cerns known.

Folks milled around the Hall of Heroes Com­mu­ni­ty Room at the Gainesville Police Depart­ment on North­west Eighth Avenue, talk­ing over the issues with fel­low res­i­dents as well as with Flori­da Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion offi­cials who were on hand to answer questions.

Sev­er­al peo­ple sub­mit­ted writ­ten com­ments to the FDEP at the meet­ing, which was styled as an open house, although oth­ers stopped by a table in an adja­cent room to give ver­bal com­ments instead.

The Gainesville Renew­able Ener­gy Cen­ter has applied to the FDEP for the five-year per­mit, which would be effec­tive Jan. 1. This would be its ini­tial Title V permit.

The bio­mass plant drew com­plaints of noise, odor and dust issues in the past from res­i­dents of the Turkey Creek Golf & Coun­try Club, while gov­ern­ment employ­ees who work near­by at Alachua Coun­ty’s Pub­lic Works facil­i­ty com­plained about odor and dust prob­lems as well.

Some mea­sures were tak­en to improve con­di­tions, such as installing acoustic pan­els in the stack to cut down on noise.

Turkey Creek res­i­dent Lar­ry Noegel came to Tues­day’s meet­ing because he still has con­cerns about the plant even though the noise prob­lems that trou­bled him a while back have been resolved.

“For three months, we could not even use our bed­room for the noise,” he said. “They took care of the noise in Decem­ber of last year, but for three months they did noth­ing except say we were a nuisance.”

Odor can still be an issue at times depend­ing on the wind, rain and so on, he said, call­ing the stench out there “ter­ri­ble.”

Noegel, 69, moved to Turkey Creek in 2007 and planned to retire there, but he said he would sell his house right now if he could because of the bio­mass plant.

“My house is, to be exact, 3,025 feet from the stack itself,” he said.

Noegel said GREC has­n’t been hon­est with him and his fel­low residents.

“From the get-go, we have been lied to,” he said.

John Brush­wood, GREC’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor, said the noise and odor issues some res­i­dents have raised don’t real­ly per­tain to the Title V per­mit but are still tak­en seriously.

In attain­ing a Title V per­mit, Brush­wood said GREC is going from a con­struc­tion air per­mit to its final oper­a­tional permit.

Upon receiv­ing this per­mit, GREC will be in full com­pli­ance with the required fed­er­al and state reg­u­la­tions on air emis­sions, he said, although GREC is actu­al­ly already in full com­pli­ance with air emis­sions requirements.

No facil­i­ties in Flori­da, to their knowl­edge, have ever had their Title V per­mit reject­ed by FDEP, he said.

Decem­ber and Lee McSh­er­ry, who have a farm near Archer, came to Tues­day’s meet­ing to offer their con­cerns about the Title V permit.

Lee McSh­er­ry said the bio­mass plant was­n’t nec­es­sary and will make peo­ple who breathe in the pol­lu­tion from the plant sick, espe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions like chil­dren and the elder­ly. He called it an “eth­i­cal failure.”

Decem­ber McSh­er­ry said they have used wood chips like the plant uses as fer­til­iz­er for their farm, and the wood piles con­tained bits of tire, plas­tic jugs and oth­er materials.

She said she is ask­ing them to mon­i­tor for haz­ardous air pol­lu­tants, such as those from burn­ing plas­tic, as well as to require records of the wood fuel sources the plant uses and their contents.

Bar­bara Sharpe, a for­mer Alachua Coun­ty School Board mem­ber and Gainesville res­i­dent, said Tues­day that the Title V per­mit is “seri­ous­ly flawed” and needs improvements.

It should be amend­ed to require test­ing to pre­vent the use of tox­ic and haz­ardous fuels, she said.

Sharpe also point­ed out that the per­mits GREC already has need to be enforced before it’s issued any more.

“GREC needs to real­ly be mon­i­tored because I don’t believe that you can trust them to do what is right as far as all of the com­plaints peo­ple have giv­en so far,” she said. “There needs to be accountability.”

Jeff Koern­er with the FDE­P’s Divi­sion of Air Resource Man­age­ment told The Sun there was an ini­tial 30-day pub­lic com­ment peri­od regard­ing the pro­posed per­mit dur­ing which around 40 peo­ple sub­mit­ted com­ments, some of whom request­ed Tues­day’s pub­lic meeting.

The next step is to com­pile all the com­ments received. If there are no sub­stan­tial changes to the per­mit requir­ing a new draft, the pro­posed per­mit will be sent to the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency for a 45-day review period.

After the EPA’s review, the state DEP can issue a final Title V per­mit that would then need to be renewed every five years, Koern­er said. It’s typ­i­cal for the EPA to say it does­n’t have any comments.

Con­tact Mor­gan Watkins at 338‑3104 ormorgan.watkins@gainesville.com.