Press Release - Trash Plant Plans

[John Thomas <jnthomas@infinet.com>]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                             CONTACT:
Thursday, November 28, 1996                        Teresa Mills

  CITY DELIVERS "TURKEY" FOR TRASH PLANT SITE
   
   In September, Neighbors Protecting Our Environment (NPE), a city-wide
   grassroots environmental group, delivered to city officials a demand
   from 829 Columbus residents that the waste-to-energy (WTE) facility
   remain permanently closed. NPE claims that the proposals to lease the
   trash plant will have a negative economic, health, and environmental
   impact on the Southside and the city as a whole. Yesterday's
   announcement to allow a graphite processing company and a huge natural
   gas power plant to operate at the closed waste-to-energy incinerator
   has delivered a "turkey" to the Southside for thanksgiving.
   
   In July of this year, Columbus City Council approved construction of a
   pet incinerator on the Southside. City Council members concluded that
   this would not produce a public nuisance due to the existence of the
   waste-to- energy incinerator, the animal rendering plant, the sewage
   incinerators, and the landfills. In a brilliant display of circular
   logic, Columbus Utilities Director, James Joyce, discussing plans for
   the trash plant in August said that he could not "think of what might
   be objectionable" due to the industrial nature of the neighborhood.
   
   Teresa Mills, a spokesperson for Neighbors Protecting Our Environment
   has watched city officials carry on like this for years. "The trash
   plant is used as the excuse to ignore all the other pollution on the
   Southside;" she says, "then the existing high levels of pollution are
   used as the excuse to allow new polluting industries at the trash
   plant." Thus the neighbors of the trash plant are in a no-win
   situation. To improve their neighborhood they need to keep new
   industrial facilities out and close existing ones. But city officials
   and the Ohio EPA ignore opposition to new polluting facilities based
   on the current industrial nature of the neighborhood.
   
   A power plant on the Southside will mean higher levels of ground level
   ozone. Graphite processing will release sulfur dioxide and could
   release other pollution. Each of these facilities have proposed to use
   the trash plant's air permits. "If they are releasing as much air
   pollution as the trash plant, where's the benefit?" asks Mills.
   
   In fact, ground level ozone could be a real problem for the city. With
   new U.S. EPA rules expected to be released soon, higher quantities of
   ozone could mean Columbus would be in violation of the Clean Air Act.
   Placing a new power plant on the Southside may force all residents of
   Columbus into an auto emissions "e-check" program to reduce ozone
   levels throughout the city.
   
   A further problem with the graphite processing proposal is that
   William Goldberger, a senior vice president at Superior Graphite lives
   in Bexley. According to John Thomas, a Bexley resident and NPE member,
   "He was one of the opponents of the Bexley McDonalds." Mr. Goldberger
   and Superior Graphite have refused to meet with trash plant neighbors.
   Bexley residents claim that McDonalds and the Bexley City Council
   ignored neighborhood concerns, now Superior Graphite and Columbus City
   Council are poised to deliver the same kind of treatment to the
   Southside. "The irony," says John Thomas, "is that Mr. Goldberger does
   not see the connection."
   
   NPE believes the city should leave the trash plant site vacant.
   Columbus is already saving $10 million a year with the closing of the
   trash plant. The economic, health, and environmental risks associated
   with future operations at the trash plant site cannot be overcome.

       For additional information visit the NPE WEB page at:

          http://www.infinet.com/~jnthomas/columbus_ohio

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