Air Pollution and Toxic Hazards Associated with Poultry Litter Incineration

by Mike Ewall, Novem­ber 2007

What Goes In, Must Come Out

One of the most basic prin­ci­ples of incin­er­a­tion is that what goes in, must come out.  There is no alche­my going on, so if there are tox­ic heavy met­als like lead, mer­cury or arsenic going in one end, they must come out in the form of tox­ic ash and tox­ic air emis­sions.  When anoth­er class of con­t­a­m­i­nants known as halo­gens enters an incin­er­a­tor, you have anoth­er sit­u­a­tion on your hands.  These halo­gens (chlo­rine being the most promi­nent) are often released in the form of acid gas­es (con­tribut­ing to acid rain and res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems) and also are released in small vol­umes of extreme­ly tox­ic chem­i­cals called diox­ins and furans (among the most tox­ic chem­i­cals ever stud­ied).[1]

Nat­u­ral­ly, when eval­u­at­ing incin­er­a­tion, one of the first ques­tions becomes “what is going in to the incin­er­a­tor?” Incin­er­a­tion of poul­try waste bring much need­ed atten­tion to what is in poul­try waste and in the chick­en and turkey feed itself.

Arsenic Use in Chicken & Turkey Feed

Accord­ing to the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, “Organ­ic arsenic com­pounds are exten­sive­ly added to the feed of ani­mals (par­tic­u­lar­ly poul­try and swine) in the Unit­ed States to improve growth rates by con­trol­ling par­a­sitic dis­eases.”[2]  Sev­er­al oth­er arti­cles and gov­ern­ment reports con­firm this, includ­ing stud­ies by the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey look­ing into the land and water impacts of arsenic-con­tain­ing poul­try lit­ter being land applied in the Chesa­peake Bay water­shed, where they have found trace ele­ments of arsenic in Mary­land’s Pocomoke Riv­er.[3,4,5,6,7]

Rox­ar­sone, or 3‑ni­tro-4-hydrox­ypheny­lar­son­ic acid, is cur­rent­ly the most com­mon­ly used arseni­cal com­pound in poul­try feed in the Unit­ed States, with a usage of 23 to 45 grams of chem­i­cal per ton of feed for broil­er chick­ens for increased weight gain, feed effi­cien­cy, improved pig­men­ta­tion, and pre­ven­tion of par­a­sites.[3,8]  Rox­ar­sone is used in turkeys as well as chick­ens.[9]  By design, most of the chem­i­cal is excret­ed in the manure.[2,3,5]

Stud­ies have shown arsenic con­cen­tra­tions in poul­try lit­ter to be between 15 and 35 ppm (parts per mil­lion).[2,3,10]  At these con­cen­tra­tions, one can expect that the 300,000 tons per year of chick­en lit­ter than Fibrowatt plans to burn at their pro­posed Hur­lock, Mary­land and Magee, Mis­sis­sip­pi plants would con­tain 9,000 to 21,000 pounds (4.5 to 10.5 tons) of arsenic.  Fibrowat­t’s first and largest pro­pos­al in the U.S. — one for 500,000 tons per year of turkey waste in Ben­son, Min­neso­ta — would burn waste con­tain­ing 15,000 to 35,000 pounds (7.5 to 17.5 tons) of arsenic each year.

Even if pol­lu­tion con­trol equip­ment were able to remove 99% of this arsenic, that would leave 90–210 pounds (150–350 for Min­neso­ta) of arsenic air pol­lu­tants, mak­ing these incin­er­a­tors a major source of arsenic air pol­lu­tion.  The Fibrominn air per­mit projects that the Ben­son plant would emit 64 pounds a year of arsenic into the air, mean­ing that the plan­t’s pol­lu­tion con­trols would have to cap­ture between 99.6 and 99.8% of the arsenic.[11]  Any arsenic cap­tured in pol­lu­tion con­trols would not sim­ply dis­ap­pear, but would become part of the fly ash, which Fibrowatt plans to sell as fer­til­iz­er.[12,13,14,15]  This is a lose-lose propo­si­tion.  The low­er the air emis­sions (due to bet­ter pol­lu­tion con­trols), the more tox­ic the ash “fer­til­iz­er” will be.

Min­neso­ta state law sets an ambi­ent air lim­it stan­dard of 0.002 micro­grams per cubic meter for arsenic.  There is rea­son to believe that the “Fibrominn” incin­er­a­tor may vio­late Min­neso­ta’s Chron­ic Health Risk Val­ue for arsenic and arsenic com­pounds, which ought to be mea­sured at Fibromin­n’s prop­er­ty line.[16]

State reg­u­la­tors in Min­neso­ta, where the first poul­try waste incin­er­a­tor in the U.S. is planned, are rely­ing on self-report­ed data from one of Fibrowat­t’s 3 exist­ing facil­i­ties (all of which are in the UK), con­clud­ing that arsenic won’t be a major con­cern at the pro­posed Fibrominn plant.[17]  How­ev­er, one of the oth­er two Fibrowatt plants in the UK (Fibro­gen in North Lin­colnshire) is list­ed as the 27th largest arsenic air emit­ter out of the 93 list­ed in the 1998 Pol­lu­tion Inven­to­ry of Indus­tri­al Units in Eng­land and Wales.[18]

It is being assumed that emis­sions from a poul­try waste burn­er in the U.S. would be com­pa­ra­ble to the British facil­i­ties, even though no effort has been made to eval­u­ate whether arseni­cal and oth­er feed amend­ments are used as wide­ly in the British poul­try indus­try as in the U.S.  Until this is known, extrap­o­la­tions of emis­sions from Fibrowat­t’s UK facil­i­ties to those in the U.S. are inappropriate.

Arsenic is more tox­ic than lead and has been the sub­ject of much polit­i­cal debate after much sci­en­tif­ic research led pol­i­cy­mak­ers to seek to low­er the allow­able amount of arsenic in drink­ing water.[19,20]  Arsenic’s use in wood-treat­ment chem­i­cals has been phased out.[21] Arsenic is clas­si­fied as a known human car­cino­gen and, when inhaled, can cause can­cer in humans, par­tic­u­lar­ly lung can­cer.[10,22,23,24]  A new study sug­gests that arsenic inter­feres with hor­mones, mak­ing it a potent endocrine dis­rupter.[25]

Dirtier than Coal Plants

The air pol­lu­tion per­mit for the pro­posed Fibrominn project allows that incin­er­a­tor to emit near­ly 5 mil­lion pounds of reg­u­lat­ed air pol­lu­tants each year, includ­ing 388,000 pounds of sul­fu­ric acid, 236,000 pounds of hydrochlo­ric acid and 4,600 pounds of hydro­flu­o­ric acid.[26]  That’s about 1,722 pounds a day of acid gas­es released into the sky above Ben­son, Min­neso­ta.  The per­mit states that “the pro­posed source will be a major source for haz­ardous air pol­lu­tants.” This is a gross under­state­ment.  It would not only be “a major source” — if near­ing their per­mit lim­its, the incin­er­a­tor would be the largest source of sul­fu­ric acid in Min­neso­ta (exceed­ing the COMBINED emis­sions of all of the coal-fired pow­er plants and oth­er sources in the state which report­ed their tox­ic releas­es to the U.S. EPA’s Tox­ic Release Inven­to­ry data­base in 2000).  It would also be the sec­ond largest source of hydrochlo­ric acid air pol­lu­tion in the state, beat­ing out the state’s paper mills, an oil refin­ery and all but one of the state’s coal-fired pow­er plants.[27]

Fibrowatt would argue that their actu­al emis­sions would be nowhere near their per­mit lim­its and that it would be improp­er to com­pare their per­mit lim­its with actu­al (self-report­ed) emis­sions from oth­er indus­tries. Were this true, it begs the ques­tion: why would Fibrowatt need per­mit lim­its far, far high­er than what they expect to release?

To make a fair com­par­i­son, it would be best to com­pare actu­al emis­sions to actu­al emis­sions, or per­mit lim­its to per­mit limits.

The Blue Ridge Envi­ron­men­tal Defense League (BREDL) — a region­al grass­roots envi­ron­men­tal net­work based in North Car­oli­na — is fight­ing Fibrowat­t’s plans to build three poul­try waste incin­er­a­tors in North Car­oli­na. They com­pared the per­mit­ted emis­sions from Fibrowat­t’s Min­neso­ta plant to the per­mit­ted emis­sions of a new coal pow­er plant planned in North Car­oli­na. The com­par­i­son shows that Fibrowat­t’s per­mit lim­its are high­er for four of the five major reg­u­lat­ed air pol­lu­tants reg­u­lat­ed in these per­mits. Emis­sions of nitro­gen oxides (NOx) and acid gas­es (hydrochlo­ric and sul­fu­ric acids) would be 2–3 times high­er from Fibrowatt (129% and 162% increas­es, respec­tive­ly). Emis­sions of par­tic­u­late mat­ter would be 33% and car­bon monox­ide would be 60% high­er. The sul­fur diox­ide emis­sions would be 53% low­er.[28]

In Novem­ber 2007, Fibrowatt coun­tered this com­par­i­son, argu­ing that they would­n’t be as pol­lut­ing as a coal plant. They did their own com­par­i­son — com­par­ing actu­al emis­sions from the just-opened Fibrominn plant to exist­ing coal pow­er plants in North Car­oli­na.[29] While a com­par­i­son of actu­al emis­sions would nat­u­ral­ly be best, Fibrowat­t’s com­par­i­son is a false one. They com­pared their incin­er­a­tor to coal pow­er plants that were built decades ago, which would be ille­gal to build today, with­out being sub­ject­ed to much more strin­gent air pol­lu­tion laws. As it turns out, BREDL’s com­par­i­son is more accu­rate, as it com­pares “apples to apples” by look­ing at recent per­mits under mod­ern-day air pol­lu­tion laws.

When Fibrowatt was asked whether they could meet the cur­rent lim­it for nitro­gen oxide emis­sions that the Cliff­side coal pow­er plant pro­posed in North Car­oli­na would have to meet, they respond­ed that they could not. An envi­ron­men­tal engi­neer in the North Car­oli­na Divi­sion of Air Qual­i­ty affirmed, in a 2006 arti­cle in the Char­lotte Observ­er, that Fibrowat­t’s “emis­sions would be sim­i­lar to those of reg­u­lar coal-fired pow­er plants.”[30]

Chlorine Contamination and Dioxin

Diox­in was declared a Class 1 car­cino­gen, or “known human car­cino­gen,” by the Inter­na­tion­al Agency for Research on Can­cer (IARC), an arm of the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion, in Feb­ru­ary, 1997.[31]  This was con­firmed by the U.S. Nation­al Tox­i­col­o­gy Pro­gram in their Ninth Report On Car­cino­gens.[32]  In 2001, Bush’s EPA signed an inter­na­tion­al agree­ment seek­ing to elim­i­nate sources of diox­in.[33]  Diox­in is formed acci­den­tal­ly in the course of most incin­er­a­tion process­es and in cer­tain oth­er indus­tries where chlo­rine is used.  Incin­er­a­tors are the largest known source of diox­in.[34]

Diox­in would­n’t be much of an issue if the ingre­di­ents for form­ing diox­in weren’t being placed in the incin­er­a­tor.  Diox­in pro­duc­tion requires hydro­car­bons and chlo­rine.  Poul­try lit­ter is full of hydro­car­bons, both in the manure and the bed­ding.  There should be no short­age of chlo­rine in the poul­try lit­ter, either.  This is appar­ent from the huge amount of hydrochlo­ric acid that the Fibrominn incin­er­a­tor would be per­mit­ted to release.

One of the sources of chlo­rine is from the var­i­ous drugs and pes­ti­cides used in the poul­try indus­try.[35]  Chlorte­tra­cy­cline is a chlo­ri­nat­ed growth-pro­mot­ing antibi­ot­ic wide­ly-used in the broil­er indus­try.  Also, at least sev­en oth­er drugs, most of them antic­oc­cidi­als are chlo­ri­nat­ed.[36]  One of the more com­mon­ly used antic­oc­cidi­als is Ampro­li­um.  The residues in poul­try lit­ter of Chlorte­tra­cy­cline and Ampro­li­um alone rivals that of Rox­ar­sone, the most com­mon arseni­cal.[37]  With this many tons of chlo­ri­nat­ed drug residue in poul­try lit­ter, there is undoubt­ed­ly an ample sup­ply of chlo­rine for diox­in for­ma­tion.  After all, diox­ins are typ­i­cal­ly mea­sured in nanograms and picograms, since they are tox­ic in such tiny amounts.

Copper, Iron and Zinc Boost Dioxin Formation

Poul­try are treat­ed with cop­per sul­fate to avoid a com­mon dis­ease called “aspergillo­sis.” Evi­dence from chick­en lit­ter in Arkansas shows near­ly twice as much cop­per as arsenic in poul­try manure.[10]  In fact, cop­per lev­els in chick­en lit­ter as high enough that cat­tle have died from cop­per poi­son­ing from being fed chick­en lit­ter.[38]  Iron and zinc are also used as feed addi­tives.[35]  They are found in even high­er lev­els in poul­try manure than arsenic and cop­per.  Arkansas chick­en manure con­tains 11 times as much iron as arsenic and 12 times as much zinc.[10]  Fibrowat­t’s exist­ing poul­try waste incin­er­a­tors in the UK pro­duce ash which, accord­ing to Fibrowat­t’s own data, con­tains sig­nif­i­cant amounts of cop­per, iron and zinc.[15]

Cop­per, iron and zinc are a par­tic­u­lar haz­ard when placed in an incin­er­a­tor, since they serve as cat­a­lysts for diox­in for­ma­tion.[39]   This means that these met­als will cre­ate a sur­face for diox­ins — the most tox­ic chem­i­cals known to sci­ence — to form out of the hydro­car­bons and chlo­rine in the burn­er.  While cop­per is the most effec­tive cat­a­lyst, iron and zinc are also quite effec­tive at boost­ing diox­in production.

Although poul­try waste incin­er­a­tion is tout­ed as “renew­able bio­mass” and “green ener­gy,” the diox­in pol­lu­tion lev­els being grant­ed for the Fibrominn incin­er­a­tor are com­pa­ra­ble to diox­in emis­sions from munic­i­pal sol­id waste (MSW) incin­er­a­tors cur­rent­ly oper­at­ing in the U.S.  MSW incin­er­a­tors are — cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly — the coun­try’s largest known source of diox­in emissions.

Choose Your Own Permit

The per­mit has a “fill in the blanks” style emis­sions lim­it for fine par­tic­u­late mat­ter, where no lim­it is set by the agency and Fibrowatt gets to build and oper­ate the incin­er­a­tor for a while, then do some test­ing and pro­pose what they think the lim­it should be, based on what they can man­age to meet, rather than set­ting lim­its based on what would be con­sid­ered an “accept­able” amount of pol­lu­tion that would­n’t harm the health of humans and oth­er liv­ing sys­tems. Page A‑7 of their air pol­lu­tion per­mit states that:

Par­tic­u­late Mat­ter less than 10 micron: less than or equal to < > lb/mmBtu, based on three runs that are between 60 and 120 min­utes in length. The Per­mit­tee shall pro­pose lim­its after com­ple­tion of the Per­for­mance Tests required below. [40]

Lack of Monitoring

The Fibrominn incin­er­a­tor is only required to use con­tin­u­ous emis­sions mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems for nitro­gen oxides (NOx), car­bon monox­ide, sul­fur diox­ide (SO2), oxy­gen and opac­i­ty. Not a sin­gle tox­ic pol­lu­tant will be mon­i­tored on a reg­u­lar basis. Diox­ins and furans will be test­ed only once. Hydrochlo­ric acid, mer­cury and fine par­tic­u­late mat­ter (that under ten microns in size — called PM10) will be test­ed only 5 times, over the course of the first 15 months of oper­a­tion and none there­after. Oth­er pol­lu­tants that nev­er have to be mon­i­tored include ammo­nia, sul­fu­ric acid, hydro­flu­o­ric acid, poly­cyclic aro­mat­ic hydro­car­bons, volatile organ­ic com­pounds and tox­ic met­als (includ­ing arsenic).

Any claims of emis­sions being “clean” or “safe” need to be under­stood in the con­text that no one real­ly knows what’s being emit­ted since test­ing isn’t being done for most of the tox­ic and haz­ardous pol­lu­tants. Con­tin­u­ous emis­sions mon­i­tor­ing tech­nol­o­gy exists for all of the above-men­tioned pol­lu­tants, but state agen­cies aren’t in the habit of requir­ing their use, and com­pa­nies have no inter­est in obtain­ing data on their emis­sions if they’re not forced to.[41]

Foot­notes:

1. See Diox­in Home­page, http://www.ejnet.org/dioxin/ and EPA’s Diox­in and Relat­ed Com­pounds web­site: http://cfpub1.epa.gov/ncea/cfm/dioxin.cfm
2. Mom­plaisir, G. M; C. G. Ros­al; E. M. Hei­th­mar “Arsenic Spe­ci­a­tion Meth­ods for Study­ing the Envi­ron­men­tal Fate of Organoarsenic Ani­mal-Feed Addi­tives,” U.S. EPA, NERL- Las Vegas, 2001; (TIM No. 01- 11). Avail­able at: http://www.epa.gov/nerlesd1/chemistry/labmonitor/labresearch.htm Arsenic con­cen­tra­tions cit­ed as 15–30 ppm.
3. Miller, C.V., T.C., Han­cock, and J.M. Den­ver, 2000, “Envi­ron­men­tal Fate and Trans­port of Arseni­cal Feed Amend­ments for Ani­mal Agri­cul­ture,” Amer­i­can Geo­phys­i­cal Union, 2000 Spring Meet­ing: Inte­gra­tive Geo­science Solu­tions — A Start for the New Mil­len­ni­um, May 30 — June 3, 2000, Wash­ing­ton, DC. Abstract avail­able at: http://va.water.usgs.gov/GLOBAL/Abst/hancock_agu_2000.htm Arsenic con­cen­tra­tions cit­ed as 15–35 ppm.
4. Miller, C.V., Fos­ter, G.D., and Huff, T.B.. 2000. “Organ­ic com­pounds and trace ele­ments in the Pocomoke Riv­er and Trib­u­taries, Mary­land.” U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey Open-File Report 99–57. Avail­able at: http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1999/ofr-99–057/
5. “Chick­ens, manure, and arsenic,” Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­cy News, March 22, 2001. Avail­able at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es012337m Arsenic con­cen­tra­tions cit­ed as 30–50 ppm. 
6. “Poul­try’s Price: The Cost to the Bay,” The Wash­ing­ton Post, August 1, 1999, pA1. Avail­able at:
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/aug99/chicken1.htm

7. Sci­en­tif­ic and Tech­ni­cal Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (STAC) Work­shop Report, “Non-Nutri­tive Feed Issues in Chick­en Pro­duc­tion,” Tide­wa­ter Inn, Eas­t­on, Mary­land, Octo­ber 2, 2001. Avail­able at: http://www.chesapeake.org/stac/pubs/wrkshops/AgReport.PDF
8. “Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Sum­ma­ry NADA 141–066,” U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion. Avail­able at: http://www.fda.gov/cvm/efoi/section2/141066110797.html
9. A sim­ple search for the words turkey and Rox­ar­sone in Google will show plen­ty of evi­dence that this organ­ic form of arsenic is used in the turkey indus­try as a growth pro­mot­er and as an antic­oc­cidi­al. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF‑8&oe=UTF‑8&q=turkey+roxarsone
10. Holle­man, John T. In Arkansas Which Comes First, The Chick­en Or The Envi­ron­ment? Tulane Envi­ron­men­tal Law J. 6.1, 1992. Con­cen­tra­tions of met­als in Arkansas poul­try manure cit­ed in “Inten­sive Poul­try Pro­duc­tion: Foul­ing The Envi­ron­ment” arti­cle by Unit­ed Poul­try Con­cerns, on the web at http://www.upc-online.org/fouling.html. “Fac­to­ry poul­try manure con­tains heavy met­als. The 5,100 tons of poul­try manure pro­duced dai­ly in Arkansas dumps into the envi­ron­ment, each day, 3,100 pounds of man­ganese, 3,300 pounds of iron, 540 pounds of cop­per, 3600 pounds of zinc, and 300 pounds of arsenic.” The con­cen­tra­tions giv­en for arsenic work out to 29.4 ppm.
11. “Draft Air Per­mit No. 15100038–001” and “Tech­ni­cal Sup­port Doc­u­ment for Draft Air Emis­sion Per­mit No. 15100038–001,” Min­neso­ta Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Agency, August 2002. To request a copy of the Fibrominn air per­mit, con­tact Jen­ny L. Rein­ert­sen, P.E., Majors and Reme­di­a­tion Divi­sion, MPCA at 651–282-9889 or 520 Lafayette Road North, St. Paul, Min­neso­ta 55155.The pro­ject­ed arsenic emis­sions from the Fibrominn plant are in the Tech­ni­cal Sup­port Doc­u­ment, under the Air Tox­i­cs Screen­ing Analy­sis. Table 10–1, titled “Fibrominn Emis­sion Rates for Air Tox­i­cs Review” was writ­ten by Alter­na­tive Resources, Inc. on Aug 13, 2001. The table projects 0.032 tons per year (which amounts to 64 pounds per year). 

12. Ibid. Page 7 of the Tech­ni­cal Sup­port Doc­u­ment states that “Fibrominn plans to sell its fly­ash for fertilizer.”
13. “State­ment of Rupert J. Fras­er, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, Fibrowatt LLC, Yard­ley, Penn­syl­va­nia,” Tes­ti­mo­ny before U.S. Con­gress, Com­mit­tee on Ways and Means, Select Rev­enue Mea­sures Sub­com­mit­tee, State­ment for the Record (Con­gres­sion­al Tes­ti­mo­ny on Sec­tion 45 Tax Cred­its), May 3, 2001. Avail­able at: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/srm/107cong/5–3‑01/record/fraser.htm In the tes­ti­mo­ny, Fras­er states: “This ash can be sold as a fertilizer.”
14. “The Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­er of Dorch­ester Coun­ty — Reg­u­lar Meet­ing Min­utes,” August 15, 2000. Avail­able at: http://www.commissioners.net/081500.html Under “FIBROSHORE PUBLIC HEARING” the min­utes attribute the fol­low­ing to Eric Jenk­ins, a Fibrowatt rep­re­sen­ta­tive: “He also stat­ed that FibroShore’s process is to com­bust poul­try lit­ter and forestry residue, pro­duc­ing elec­tric­i­ty and ash, which can be sold as fertilizer.”
15. “Fibrophos,” Fibrowatt web­site. Avail­able at: http://www.eprl.co.uk/assets/fibrophos/overview.html
16. Min­neso­ta Rules, Sec­tion 4717.8050 Def­i­n­i­tions and Sec­tion 4717.8100 Table of chron­ic HRVs. Avail­able at: http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/arule/4717/
17. Note 11 supra. The air per­mit issued by the Min­neso­ta Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Agency to Fibrominn relies on data report­ed by Fibrowat­t’s from their Thet­ford facil­i­ty in the UK.
18. “A Review of Arsenic in Ambi­ent Air in the UK,” Depart­ment of the Envi­ron­ment, Trans­port and the Regions, Scot­tish Exec­u­tive, The Nation­al Assem­bly for Wales, Feb­ru­ary 2000. Avail­able at: http://www.aeat.com/netcen/airqual/reports/arsenic00/arsenic_97v.pdf
19. “Arsenic in Drink­ing Water,” U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. Avail­able at: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/arsenic.html
20. “Arsenic in Drink­ing Water: 2001 Update,” Tes­ti­mo­ny of Robert A. Goy­er, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern Ontario and Chair, Sub­com­mit­tee to Update the 1999 Arsenic in Drink­ing Water Report, Board on Envi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies and Tox­i­col­o­gy, Nation­al Research Coun­cil before the House Sci­ence Com­mit­tee, U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Octo­ber 4, 2001. Avail­able at: http://www.house.gov/science/ets/oct04/goyer.htm
21. “Eval­u­at­ing the Wood Preser­v­a­tive Chro­mat­ed Cop­per Arse­n­ate (CCA),” U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. Avail­able at: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/citizens/cca_evaluating.htmFurther info on CCA can be found at the fol­low­ing websites: 
    • Flori­da Cen­ter for Sol­id and Haz­ardous Waste Management
    • CCA Research (spon­sored by Flori­da Center)
    • No CCA Wood: The CCA Pres­sure-Treat­ed Wood Infor­ma­tion Site

22. “Tox­FAQs for Arsenic,” Agency for Tox­ic Sub­stances and Dis­ease Reg­istry, July 2001. Avail­able at: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts2.html
23. Fer­rec­cio C, González C, Milosavjle­vic V, Mar­shall G, San­cha AM, and Smith AH, “Lung can­cer and arsenic con­cen­tra­tions in drink­ing water in Chile.” Epi­demi­ol 11:673–79, 2000. Abstract avail­able via UC Berke­ley Arsenic Research Pro­gram web­site at: http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~asrg/pubab36.html
24. “Arsenic and Old Lies,” Chem­i­cal Indus­try Archives, Envi­ron­men­tal Work­ing Group. Avail­able at: http://www.chemicalindustryarchives.org/dirtysecrets/arsenic/1.asp
25. Kaltrei­der, R. C., Davis, M. A., Lar­iv­iere, J. P., and Hamil­ton, J. W., (2001). Arsenic alters the func­tion of glu­co­cor­ti­coid recep­tor as a tran­scrip­tion fac­tor. Envi­ron­men­tal Health Per­spect., 109: 245–251. (Abstract)
26. Note 11 supra. The air per­mit issued by the Min­neso­ta Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Agency to Fibrominn allows the fol­low­ing “Poten­tial to Emit” limits:
    

    Pol­lu­tant	Tons per Year (tpy)	Pounds per Year
    Par­tic­u­late Mat­ter (PM)	69	138,000
    Sul­fur Diox­ide (SO2)	590	1,180,000
    Nitro­gen Oxides (NOx)	556	1,112,000
    Car­bon Monox­ide (CO)	832	1,664,000
    Volatile Organ­ic Com­pounds (VOC)	69	138,000
    Sufu­ric Acid (H2SO4)	194	388,000
    Hydrochlo­ric Acid (HCl)	118	236,000
    Oth­er Haz­ardous Air Pol­lu­tants (HAPs) (i.e. Hydro­flu­o­ric acid, met­als, dioxins/furans)	3	6,000
    TOTALS:	2,431	4,862,000

27. U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency Tox­ic Release Inven­to­ry data, 2000. Avail­able via the Right-to-Know Net­work.Sul­fu­ric Acid (H₂SO₄) Stack Air emis­sions in Min­neso­ta, 2000:
    Note: the total of these exist­ing sources is 244,375 lbs — less than the 388,000 that Fibrominn would be per­mit­ted to release yearly

    Facil­i­ty Name	Emis­sions (pounds)	Indus­try	City	Coun­ty	Par­ent Company
    Rochester Pub­lic Util­i­ties Sil­ver Lake Plant	57,000	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Rochester	Olm­st­ed
    Austin Util­i­ties North­east Pow­er Station	41,400	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Austin	Mow­er
    A.S. King Gen­er­at­ing Plant	39,000	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Bay­port	Wash­ing­ton	Xcel Ener­gy
    Koch Sul­fur Prods. Co.	31,000	Indus­tri­al Inor­gan­ic Chemicals	Rose­mount	Dako­ta	Koch Inds. Inc.
    Inter­na­tion­al Paper Co.	28,125	Paper Mill	Sartell	Ben­ton	Inter­na­tion­al Paper Co.
    Boswell Ener­gy Center	23,000	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Cohas­set	Itas­ca	Allete Inc.
    River­side Gen­er­at­ing Plant	15,000	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Min­neapo­lis	Hen­nepin	Xcel Ener­gy
    North­ern States Pow­er Co.	8,300	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Beck­er	Sher­burne	North­ern States Pow­er Co.
    Polar­fab L.L.C.	935	Semi­con­duc­tors and Relat­ed Devices	Bloom­ing­ton	Hen­nepin
    3m Cot­tage Grove Center	615	Paper: Coat­ed and Laminated	Cot­tage Grove	Wash­ing­ton	3m Co. Inc.

    Hydrochlo­ric Acid (HCl) Stack Air emis­sions in Min­neso­ta, 2000:

    Facil­i­ty Name	Emis­sions (pounds)	Indus­try	City	Coun­ty	Par­ent Company
    Rochester Pub­lic Util­i­ties Sil­ver Lake Plant	275,000	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Rochester	Olm­st­ed
    Austin Util­i­ties North­east Pow­er Station	117,000	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Austin	Mow­er
    Pot­latch Corp.	94,139	Paper Mill	Brain­erd	Crow Wing	Pot­latch Corp.
    Pot­latch Corp. Mn P & P Div.	49,338	Pulp Mill	Clo­quet	Carl­ton	Pot­latch Corp.
    Koch Petro­le­um Group L.P.	36,000	Oil Refin­ery	Rose­mount	Dako­ta	Koch Inds. Inc.
    Boswell Ener­gy Center	19,000	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Cohas­set	Itas­ca	Allete Inc.
    A.S. King Gen­er­at­ing Plant	14,000	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Bay­port	Wash­ing­ton	Xcel Ener­gy
    River­side Gen­er­at­ing Plant	11,000	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Min­neapo­lis	Hen­nepin	Xcel Ener­gy
    Otter Tail Pow­er Co. Hoot Lake Plant	7,100	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Fer­gus Falls	Otter Tail
    North­ern States Pow­er Co.	6,600	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Beck­er	Sher­burne	North­ern States Pow­er Co.
    Black Dog Gen­er­at­ing Plant	6,200	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Burnsville	Dako­ta	Xcel Ener­gy
    High Bridge Gen­er­at­ing Plant	6,100	Pow­er Plant (Coal)	Saint Paul	Ram­sey	Xcel Ener­gy
    Inter­na­tion­al Paper Co.	2,560	Paper Mill	Sartell	Ben­ton	Inter­na­tion­al Paper Co.
    3m Cot­tage Grove Center	1,595	Paper: Coat­ed and Laminated	Cot­tage Grove	Wash­ing­ton	3m Co. Inc.
    Spec­tro Alloys Corp.	766	Sec­ondary Non­fer­rous Metals	Rose­mount	Dako­ta
    Amer­i­can Crys­tal Sug­ar Co.	250	Beet Sug­ar	Moor­head	Clay	Amer­i­can Crys­tal Sug­ar Co.

28. “Poul­try Lit­ter ver­sus Coal-fired Pow­er Plants: An Air Pol­lu­tion Com­par­i­son” Blue Ridge Envi­ron­men­tal Defense League, July 9, 2007. Avail­able at: http://www.bredl.org/pdf/AirPollutionComparison_poultry-coal070709.pdf
29. “Fibrowatt plant is clean­er than coal-fired pow­er plants,” Fibrowatt hand­out, Novem­ber 2007.
30. Hen­der­son, Bruce, “The Scoop On Future Pow­er? — What these chick­ens drop could one day light up N.C. homes,” Char­lotte Observ­er, April 1, 2006. For­mer­ly online at: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/business/14238604.htm
31. “Pri­or­i­ty PBTs: Diox­ins and Furans,” U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. Avail­able at: http://www.epa.gov/pbt/dioxins.htm
32. “TCDD — Diox­in — is List­ed as ‘Known Human Car­cino­gen’ in Fed­er­al Gov­ern­men­t’s Ninth Report On Car­cino­gens,” Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health Press Release, Jan­u­ary 19, 2001. Press Release and Report avail­able at: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/oc/news/dioxadd.htm
33. “Stock­holm Con­ven­tion on Per­sis­tent Organ­ic Pol­lu­tants Signed,” Sier­ra Club. Avail­able at: http://www.sierraclub.org/toxics/resources/treaty.asp
34. “Sources of Diox­in-Like Com­pounds in the Unit­ed States,” U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, 2000. Avail­able at: http://cfpub1.epa.gov/ncea/cfm/dioxindb.cfm
35. For­man, Charles, “Ani­mal Feed Addi­tives: Tech­nolo­gies and Mar­kets,” Busi­ness Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­pa­ny, August 1995. Out­line avail­able at: http://www.buscom.com/food/GA086.html
36. In addi­tion to Chlorte­tra­cy­cline, the fol­low­ing chlo­ri­nat­ed drugs (the first five are used as antic­oc­cidi­als) are used in poul­try feed in the U.S.:
    

    Chlo­ri­nat­ed Poul­try Feed Additive	Oth­er Names	Chem­i­cal Formula	Chem­i­cal Name
    Ampro­li­um	Amprol		(1-[(4‑amino-2-propylpiridin-5-yl)methyl]-2-methyl-pyridimium chlo­ride hydrochloride)
    Clopi­dol	Coy­den	C7H7Cl2NO	3;5‑Dichloro‑2;6‑dimethyl-4-pyridinol
    Diclazuril	Dicla­zo	C17H9Cl3N4O2	Ben­ze­neace­toni­trile, 2,6‑dichloro-alpha-(4‑chlorophenyl)-4-(4,5‑di hydro‑3,5‑dioxo‑1,2,4‑triazin‑2(3H)-yl)-
    Halofug­i­none Hydrobromide	Dec­cox	C16H17BrClN3O3	HBr,DL-trans-7-bromo-6-chloro-3-(3-(3‑hydroxy-2-piperidy) acetonyl)quinazolin‑4(3H)-one hydrobromide
    Robeni­dine Hydrochloride		C15H13Cl2N5	HCl,1,3‑bis[(p‑chlorobenzylidene)amino] guani­dine hydrochloride
    Met­i­clor­pin­dol			3,5‑dichloro‑2,6‑dimethylpyridine-4-ol
    Enrofloxacin (1 of 2 poul­try fluoroquinolones)		C19H22FN3O3-HCl	1‑Cyclopropy1-6-fluoro‑1,4‑dihydro-4-oxo-7-[(4‑ethyl)-1- piperaziny1]-3-quinolinecarboxylic acid,hydrochloride

37. “Hog­ging It: Esti­mates of Antimi­cro­bial Abuse in Live­stock,” Table 14, Union of Con­cerned Sci­en­tists Report, Jan­u­ary 8, 2001. Avail­able at: http://www.ucsusa.org/food/hogging_exec.html Chlorte­tra­cy­cline use is esti­mat­ed at 1,418,675 lbs per year in the U.S. Ampro­li­um use is esti­mat­ed at 789,299 lbs/year, totalling 2,207,974 lbs/year of these 2 chlo­ri­nat­ed drugs alone. Rox­ar­sone use is esti­mat­ed at 1,972,443 lbs/year. When com­bined with Arsanil­ic Acid use (371,435 lbs/year), arseni­cals total 2,343,878 lbs/year — about the same as just two of the sev­er­al chlo­ri­nat­ed drugs.
38. Tokar­nia CH et al, “Out­break of cop­per poi­son­ing in cat­tle fed poul­try lit­ter.” Vet­eri­nary and Human Tox­i­col­o­gy 2000, Apr 42(2):92–95. (abstract)
39. The many stud­ies which were sep­a­rate­ly foot­not­ed here are now con­sol­i­dat­ed on the Met­als as Cat­a­lysts for Diox­in For­ma­tion web­site, Diox­in Home­page, http://www.ejnet.org/dioxin/catalysts.html.
40. Fibrominn Bio­mass Pow­er Plant Air Emis­sion Per­mit No. 15100038–004, issued by Min­neso­ta Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Agency, Feb 9th, 2005. http://www.pca.state.mn.us/air/permits/issued/15100038–004-aqpermit.pdf.
41. Con­tin­u­ous Emis­sions Mon­i­tor­ing Sys­tems http://www.ejnet.org/toxics/cems.