LAVONIA — A plant that turns chicken litter into energy is not green, it’s highly toxic and deadly, some northeast Georgia community members said Thursday.
At a community rally Thursday night in opposition to a proposed plant in Hart County, hundreds packed the Lavonia Community Center. They heard about studies conducted by the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League regarding the emissions created by poultry litter-powered plants.
Fibrowatt LLC is considering building a plant in Hart County in the Gateway Industrial Park and has been in discussion with the Hart County Building Industrial Authority and the county government. Industrial Authority Director Dwayne Dye has said the plant would not have an incinerator and would be environmentally friendly.
But Louis Zeller, administrator and clean air campaign coordinator for the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, told a different story Thursday with the aid of charts and graphs on an overhead projector. Citing a study of Fibrominn, the Minnesota poultry energy plant visited by Hart county commissioners several weeks ago, Zeller said the toxic emissions coming from that plant were at least double the amount from a coal-fired plant.
“This is what we found when we started to look at that plant,” Zeller said. “The state of Minnesota developed an air permit, and these are the results. We compared this air pollution permit with a coal-fired power plant permit. In every category that we looked at — in particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and acid gasses — there were higher emissions coming from a poultry manure-powered plant.”
Pointing out one graph, Zeller said some of the toxins released in higher amounts from a poultry litter plant include nitrous oxide, ammonia, arsenic, cadmium, hydrogen chloride and sulfuric acid. All of those, he said, are odorless, colorless and cause upper-respiratory diseases and various cancers.
Information on one graph showed carbon monoxide levels at .02 for an existing coal-fired plant versus .24 for a poultry litter-fired plant. Zeller said his studies showed those emissions would travel in an area with a radius of six miles of more.
Zeller also said that in the two years it’s been operating in Bremen, Minn., the Fibrominn plant has already been cited by the state for numerous environmental violations. Showing the crowd a copy of the Minnesota stipulation agreement with Fibrominn, Zeller said the violations were numerous.
“They have been cited for excessive levels of nitrogen oxide, excessive levels of sulfur dioxide, excessive levels of carbon monoxide,” Zeller said. “This document cites the problems and has the company admitting they are in violation, and then it stipulates what needs to be done. For example, $80,000 worth of additional pollution control equipment, etc. It’s not a pretty picture.”
Another speaker, the Rev. Charles Utley, Savannah River Site campaign coordinator, encouraged the group opposing the plant to stay focused and united.
“Of all the communities that I’ve worked with, the bottom line is the dollar bill,” Utley said. “The money drives (the corporations) to do these things. I’ve seen babies with tumors the size of their heads. That doesn’t bother them. All they care about is what goes to the bank. You have to stay organized. … As the Scripture says, ‘Where there are two or three gathered together in My Name, touching and agreeing on anything, there I am in the midst of them.’ I see you touching and agreeing. … Put them on notice that you will not sit idle.”
Concerns raised by the audience included the effect emissions from the poultry litter plant would have on a planned hospital in Lavonia, and the hospital’s patients. Carol Cagle with the Knox Bridge Crossing Homeowners Association said that is one of her concerns.
“This plant would be five miles from the new hospital,” she said. “We were told by the Hart County commissioners that 150 trucks a day, seven days a week, 12 hours a day would be going in and out of that plant. Many of those trucks would be traveling up and down (Ga.) 59 past the new hospital.”
Others were worried about poultry-related diseases. Poultry litter would need to be trucked in from other states for the proposed plant, they said. So diseases such as the deadly Newcastle, some people said, could be carried in litter from other states and spread to poultry houses in Franklin and Hart counties.
Cagle said her homeowners association has already paid for signs opposed construction of a Fibrowatt plant and for public service announcements on local radio stations. The group plans to spend even more to continue their protest against the plant, Cagle said.
She passed out a list to everyone attending the meeting Thursday with the new Web site address — stopfibrowatt.com — for the group opposing the plant. The list also included e-mail addresses and phone numbers for Fibrowatt executives, Hart County commissioners, state senators and environmental agencies. She then encouraged the crowd to begin a telephone and writing campaign.
Hart County commissioners and Dwayne Dye, Cagle said, were invited to the meeting Thursday but declined to attend for various reasons.
“This not just about Lake Hartwell or the residents that live on the lake,” Cagle said. “This is about Hart County, Lavonia, because you’re 5 miles down the road, and Franklin County and our right to breathe clean air.”
Visit www.bredl.org for more information about the Blue Ridge study.