November 6, 2009
Response to Daily Journal Editorial
by Keith L. Runyon, President of Concerned United Taxpayers, NFP (CUT)
The Journal’s recent editorial favoring a trash- to- ethanol plant over a landfill came to the correct conclusion but misinformed the public about the relative risk factors of the two different means of garbage processing.
On a scale of 1 to 100 the proposed landfill has a deadly risk factor 99.9%. By contrast the ethanol plant, to be built in Schneider Indiana, has a risk factor of less than 1%. The proposed landfill is to be built over and down into the major water source aquifer which feeds the Iroquois and Kankakee Rivers. The landfill will contain thousands of chemicals which when mixed with water will produce toxic leachate which will end up in our drinking water.
The Former director of IEPA Permitting admitted on Jan 31 06 that the proposed landfill will leak and it will contaminate our water supply. In addition, a landfill emits deadly and putrid methane gas which is 23 times more heat absorbing than CO2.
Dr. G Fred Lee, worlds foremost landfill expert, declared the proposed landfill will be a threat to the health and safety of our citizens and will remain a threat as long as it lives and decomposes and this may be for thousands of years.
The ethanol plant produces no leachate because the garbage is gasified and transformed into a syngas which is then digested by microbes and transformed into ethanol. There is no methane discharge from the plant or groundwater discharge from the plant. Water used to produce ethanol is recycled. The plant has its own wastewater treatment plant the output of which will be dumped into a holding pond. That water must meet drinking water standards.
Finally, the Scientists of Argonne National Labs have put their stamp of approval on the trash to ethanol plant in Lake County, Indiana. Properly controlled and monitored, a $285 million garbage-to-ethanol plant planned for the town of Schneider should be environmentally safe, a prominent biotechnology researcher with Argonne National Laboratory said. "With the right management team and oversight by the community it can be a very safe process," said Seth Snyder, leader of the Chemical and Biotechnology Section of Argonne's Energy Systems Division, who leads a team of 40 researchers. Diane Krieger Spivak, Sun Time Media Oct 18, 2009
Conclusion: Landfill-very high risk-negative reward. Ethanol plant virtually no risk-very high financial and environmental rewards