By Gregg Hoffmann
Dairyland Power Cooperative has a chance this week to regain credibility in what has become something of a public relations nightmare. And in the process do the right thing for the community it serves.
The co-op, which wholesales electricity to 25 electric co-ops and 19 municipalities in a four-state area, will hold a public meeting this Wednesday, Oct 17, on a proposal to create a 600-acre landfill for ash from its Genoa coal-powered plant.
That meeting will run from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Viroqua High School. The proposed landfill would be on Highway 56, in the Town of Harmony, near the Genoa plant.
Up to 11 property owners, many organic farmers, could be displaced to make room for the site. Those 11 property owners have organized, are gaining support from other farmers, environmentalists and others who fear they could be affected by pollution from the site, and are gearing up for a fight .
In part, Dairyland’s credibility problems stem from how the search for the dump site has been communicated to the public. Consider this excerpt from a story in The Kickapoo Free Press (www.kickapoofreepress.com): “It came from out of the blue,” says Paul Fuenger, another farmer who stands to lose his land to the project. “I’m still in shock. It didn’t seem real. It’s like a bad dream.”
Fuenger, an organic farmer who owns 250 acres, says a Dairyland Power representative
offered him $14,000 to allow the power utility to drill test holes and a well on his property to determine if the land is appropriate for a landfill. “I told him that if I don’t want to sell out, there’s no point in letting you test. He told me, ‘I’m not threatening you, but you will have to sell to us eventually anyway.’ That’s the way he put it. I didn’t plan on moving until I died, and now they tell me that I have to.”
Dairyland comes off looking like a bully in this and other stories about the issue. The co-op also looks like it was trying to keep its search for a site as secretive as possible.
The co-op explains its search on its web site: The vast majority of the ash produced at Dairyland’s coal-fired power plants has been recycled. While some of this recycling will continue, installation of the environmental control technologies (in particular, the addition of pebble lime in the scrubber system which reduces sulfur dioxide and mercury emissions) will change the composition and volume of the byproducts. This change will make much less of the ash eligible for a recycling program, forcing Dairyland to seek a different disposal method.
Indeed part of the problem is that in Dairyland’s efforts to reduce air pollution from the Genoa facility it has created another problem. By doing something right, it has created a dilemma.
The Dairyland Genoa and Alma facilities ranked in the top 10 percent of the nation’s air polluters as recently as 2002, according to the website Scorecard.org, which analyzes data from the EPA to identify sources of pollution.
Dairyland has installed high tech scrubbers to reduce sulfur dioxide, mercury and other forms of air pollution from its Genoa plant, but as explained on the co-op web site the lime and other components left over in the ash now raise concerns about other environmental problems if the material is recycled.
The co-op has emphasized that any landfill for the ash would be lined and that the DNR would monitor water quality and other possible pollution.
But, opponents to the dump site say the ash could do as much, or more damage, to water and soil near the dump site, as any emissions currently do to the air. Dairyland estimates that between eight and 20 dump trucks would haul the waste from Genoa to the landfill every day.
In a Web site put up by opponents to the dump site, appropriately called www.kissmyash.org, alternatives to the dump site are proposed. They include: choosing a different site for the landfill, using existing landfills in Vernon and La Crosse counties, transporting the ash back to coal mines and lime pits for storage, and converting the material into an inert gravel-like aggregate.
These proposals do not sound like the ranting of the lunatic fringe. In fact, several sound like well-thought-out alternatives, which are being used by some power companies around the country.
Dairyland needs to do the right thing in this ash controversy. No amount of spin can make up for what already has been poor communications on the issue. The co-op has to be upfront and honest with the public.
Improving communications also won’t likely be enough. Dairyland has to listen to the public and consider alternatives to the dump site. It has to consider the karst geology of the Driftless area, which is more prone to runoff and leaching.
Any new landfills, or even expansion of existing ones, seem like poor solutions to the problem. The last two alternatives listed in the www.kissmyash.org Web site make the most sense, even though they undoubtedly would cost more.
This is not the only coal-powered plant in the state, or country, with a waste storage problem. It is an industry-wide challenge. Dairyland — which has been a leader in the conversion of methane from manure to electricity and other innovative green practices — has an opportunity to become a model for the industry by doing the right thing.
