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A Reader (Harold J. Richwine) Writes: Consign idea to the ‘sludge pile’ |
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Written by truth
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Wednesday, 14 February 2007 |
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By Harold J. Richwine Monday, February 12, 2007 11:06 AM PST “Once upon a time …” This is the way most fairy tales begin, and the latest one deals with the power generation facility involved with Liberty Energy to produce enough electricity to power their operations in North County and sell the excess power to coastal regions. We already have two such white elephant sites in the Imperial Valley, mothballed on Highway 111. One is the plant to burn straw to produce steam for power generators. It seems that they had a problem with silica slag chunks falling from the tops of the furnaces, causing damage. As a chemistry professor, I was contacted about the problem. It is simple, straw has a large concentration of silica and it has to go somewhere. It doesn’t burn, so it forms a solid mass on the inside of the furnace and falls to the bottom of the furnace, causing maintenance expenses and down time. I doubt that this facility ever reopens.
Traveling about 100 yards south on 111, we find another closed electrical power plant that was supposed to produce power by burning manure. While teaching at the college, I had several visits from some of their employees wanting to know how much heat could be produced in the burning of various batches of manure. It seems that no one bothered to or was able to figure that out either. I told them that I didn’t know how to figure it and that I didn’t think it could be calculated accurately. The only way would be to burn a representative sample of each different batch and experimentally develop the amount produced. So in spite of an abundant supply of the brown stuff, that plant also sits idle.
We haven’t begun to discuss the heavy metals present in the waste that is proposed to be trucked into the Imperial Valley. While I am not sure of the concentrations of the various heavy metals in this waste, it would be necessary to take representative samples from every shipment and measure the concentrations of each metal in either an atomic absorption spectrophotometer or a plasma analytical device. I would have to see the results from an independent certified laboratory in quantitative analysis, not chosen by Liberty Energy for obvious reasons. I believe that could lead to a problem called conflict of interest. Let’s face the bitter and obvious truth: the coastal cities as well as their agent, Liberty Energy, are only interested in getting rid of the sludge and dumping it as far away as possible. It’s the old adage out of sight and smell is out of mind! But no use boring you people with more ramblings, so on to the next idea!
If those involved in the permit process — such as the County Board of Supervisors and town councils — are interested, my suggestions are as follows: In the contract with Liberty Energy to dump “coastal sludge,” there should be a clause in the contract that stipulates if it (Liberty Energy) should ever close the electrical generation facility for any reason, the rest of the contract would become null and void. This would hopefully eliminate the production of another “white elephant” site in the Imperial Valley. Such a clause would produce legal battles with fantastic costs. Therefore, in that case, the legal community and Liberty Energy would profit greatly. To substantiate my belief, check out the amount spent by the IID in various pieces of litigation as was recently published in the Imperial Valley Press.
If the plant and its processes are no problem, why don’t they build such a plant in their own neighborhood? There is surely enough land up in their own vicinity, where the sludge is produced, that they could find a site and profit from the untold wealth that it would produce. They would not expend the fossil fuel energy to truck it down here. Check out an article in a previous issue of the Imperial Valley Press by Yvonne Naud. Nobody has even addressed the environmental impact if a truckload of sludge sprung a leak or crashed, spreading the brown stuff over an area in which food is being produced. Should this occur, how long would the effected fields or food producing facilities be contaminated? We could have our own little E-coli problem with such crops as broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes and carrots as well as various cattle food crops. Remember, E-coli was found in the bodies of cattle used for meat in the fast-food industry. As a matter of fact, remember the furor not too long ago from the contaminated spinach grown in northern California? Currently there is also a problem from the fast-food industry with other contaminated vegetables, and the same bacteria.
If the sludge were to be burned, what would become of the particulate matter and what would its long-term effects be? This would be a real problem if the particulate matter contained heavy metal solids which would be carried by air currents. Much more investigation needs to be done regarding and ensuing long-term effects on agriculture in the Imperial Valley before final conclusions can be defined. Those people involved in the production of food products in the Imperial Valley should be concerned by the potential risks to their financial future.
I would not be comfortable with such a facility in our valley. The number of jobs that Liberty Energy says it would produce should also be scrutinized. Firms frequently inflate the number of jobs they could produce to make it more appealing to an area. The actual number is usually a fair amount lower. Companies usually hire quite a few more than required and then prune out what they consider the dead wood. I, myself, feel this proposal is not in the best interest of the Imperial Valley and it should be consigned to the “sludge pile.”
>> “Rich” Harold J. Richwine is a Chemistry Professor Emeritus at Imperial Valley College
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