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Wyoming town fights incinerator in another state
FEATURE - Wyoming town fights
incinerator in another state
USA: September 17, 1999
JACKSON - Rich celebrity home owners and scruffy
environmentalists have forged an unlikely alliance in
this tiny community to fight a toxic waste incinerator
planned in neighbouring Idaho.
Those who know the area around the town of Jackson and
the surrounding valley called Jackson Hole are outraged by
plans for the incinerator, which will burn waste
contaminated with plutonium and PCBs (polychlorinated
biphenyls). PCBs can form deadly dioxins when burned.
Champions of the plan call it a high-tech marvel that will
cause practically no pollution. But talk in Jackson Hole is
about cancer worries, fears that wildlife could mutate and -
nearly as bad - a drop in real estate prices.
"If the incinerator is all that safe, why did they decide to
build it out here in Idaho? If it's as safe as they claim,
they
could have built it New York's Central Park," newsman
David Brinkley wrote in a letter to the Jackson Hole News.
The controversy is what some call the latest twist in
"environmental justice" - putting a potentially hazardous
project in a sparsely populated, often poor area of the
United States. What planners did not plan on was the flap
in Jackson Hole, 100 miles (160 km) downwind, where the
average home sold last year for $600,000 and smaller ones
go for up to $300,000.
LOOKING FOR FIGHT MONEY
Jackson - population roughly 6,000, or 15,000 including
surrounding Teton County - needs around $1 million to put
up a decent fight, famed Wyoming defence attorney Gerry
Spence says. It has already raised more than $500,000, a
good portion of that in one night at a town meeting.
Spence, whose high-profile clients have included Imelda
Marcos and O.J. Simpson, also represented the estate of
Karen Silkwood, a worker who died on her way to talk to a
reporter after she was contaminated in an Oklahoma
plutonium plant.
Sporting his trademark buckskin fringed jacket, he vowed at
the meeting to oppose the project "right down to the
sub-permit." He waived his fees to head a legal team to
block the incinerator plan and he donated $10,000 to the
fund.
Other contributors include movie star and local resident
Harrison Ford and his wife, who donated $50,000.
But Jackson is also home to less-famous people -
ranchers, passionate outdoor lovers and environmentalists -
and the meeting drew pledges from people in all walks of
life. One couple gave $5,000 "for our grandchildren." A
woman working as a massage therapist and house cleaner
gave $100. One man pledged $98, saing "It's all I have."
The incinerator is "probably the first issue that has ever
brought a town together like this," said film director Michael
Lessac, who moved to Jackson six years ago from Los
Angeles.
The matter is particularly sensitive given Jackson's
proximity to Yellowstone Park, about 60 miles (100 km) by
car to the north, and Grand Teton National Park.
Administrators at both parks are weighing the matter. "We
are in the same boat as a lot of people, just learning about
the project and wanting to learn more," said Steven Iobst,
assistant superintendant of Grand Teton National Park.
NOT FAR ENOUGH
Although Jackson is relatively far from the proposed
incinerator site, and on the other side the Tetons, residents
say dust and forest fire smoke from Idaho blow in now and
they fear minute toxic particles from the incinerator could
too.
"We run a great risk (that) anything in Idaho will blow over
here," local meteorologist Jim Woodmencey said.
Spectacular scenery, mountains dominated by the Grand
Tetons and a ski area with the largest vertical drop in the
United States draw more than 4 million tourists a year.
President Bill Clinton and his family visited in 1996.
So some fear the incinerator as a jobs killer.
"As a mountain guide and a mountain lover, anything that
has a chance of putting our mountains in jeopardy is not
going to find any support. Not in Jackson," said Wesley
Bunch, a guide for mountaineering company Exum.
Doug Coombs, another mountaineer who is one of the
world's best-known extreme skiers, also lives near Jackson.
"I don't want to be sitting on top of the Grand and see
funny-looking dust," he said, adding that opposition to the
project was coming from "millionaires to raft guides."
Wyoming residents are also miffed they got no notice of a
comment period on granting the project an air quality
permit. Two more environmental permits are needed
besides the air quality permit and comment periods on
these will start soon.
One factor to figure in the comments is likely to be the
possible impact from incinerating waste contaminated with
both radioactive and chemical components.
'SYNERGISTIC EFFECT' UNSTUDIED
"Nobody has studied that synergistic effect," said Paul
Connett, a chemistry professor and expert on incineration.
The project is part of a contract worth up to $1.18 billion
awarded to a team headed by BNFL, Inc., a subsidiary of
state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL). The incinerator
is to be built at the Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory, a research site owned by the
Department of Energy.
The plan calls for treating 65,000 cubic meters of waste
stored at INEEL, most which came from the Rocky Flats
nuclear weapons plant in Colorado. An option calls for
treating a further 120,000 cubic meters.
The DOE and BNFL have opted to incinerate some of the
waste - 22,000 cubic meters - to reduce the chemical
component, saying this is needed in order to ship and store
it at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
Opting to deal with the waste in another way would be
"extremely expensive," said DOE spokesman Brad Bugger,
adding: "The amount of emissions we are talking about from
this facility are extremely, extremely small."
Two environmental impact statements were done on the
project, the first of its kind in the United States. Those
involved say the process would keep dioxins from forming.
"We are using absolutely the top-of-the-line technologies
available. So this is kind of the Rolls-Royce of
incinerators,"
said Ann Riedesel, a communications specialist for BNFL
in Idaho Falls, the largest town near the incinerator site.
She said the facility would mean about 150 jobs for the
community.
Idaho has not yet approved any of the three permits
necessary to start construction on the plant.
"I can safely say that Idaho won't grant a permit if we don't
think the facility can be built and operated in a manner that
protects human health and the environment," said Kathleen
Trever, Idaho's coordinator for INEEL Oversight.
Idaho wants to get rid of the waste, just part of what is
stored at INEEL near a major source of ground water. "For
over 30 years the DOE has promised that this waste would
leave Idaho," Trever said. "We want this waste out of our
state."
Story by Alice Ratcliffe
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE