Jasper activist group protests biomass use

An idle coal-burning plant has become a burning issue in Jasper, Ind., as city officials pursue its conversion into a biomass plant.

City officials said they believe the move could be an economic boom, but opponents with health concerns believe otherwise.

“Southern Indiana is already very compromised because of coal-burning power plants,” said Rev. Christopher Breedlove, leader of the opposition group Healthy Dubois County. “Why would we want to further exacerbate this?”

Under the proposal from the Twisted Oak Corporation of Atlanta — which the city is negotiating with — the plant would burn 80 percent natural gas and 20 percent miscanthus grass.

While the plant in Jasper is idle, said Wayne Schuetter, chairman of Jasper’s utility service board, it is under contract with the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator.

“We have to fire it up (if told to),” he said. “It can be brought up to full power in six hours. We have a crew of 10 capable of firing it up and running it.”

The plant has been burning coal since 1968, but because of increased coal prices, the city began to look for alternatives, Schuetter said.

The city didn’t consider selling the plant, as it would lose control, but would like to lease the plant and receive annual payments.

Breedlove, however, said the city should “leave it idle — or, better yet, retire and dismantle it.”

Breedlove, who started the grassroots HDC group, said the smokestack is right next to a residential neighborhood. His group, he said, is concerned primarily with quality of life and property value issues.

“Because we have a significant number of people, they (the city council) had to respond,” Breedlove said. “It’s a story about persistence.”

HDC started with a couple of people and a peaceful vigil to raise awareness, as most residents were unaware the city was pursuing a biomass plant, Breedlove said. Now the group has blossomed to include about 300 members.

“It’s continuing to snowball as far as people becoming aware,” he said.

Schuetter said if the proposal is accepted, the positions at the power plant would expand from 14 to about 30. In addition, he said, it would lead to 30 to 50 jobs in the handling of the miscanthus grass, 80 to 100 construction jobs for 12 to 18 months and long-term growing contracts of 10 or 20 years for local farmers. He also noted the multiplier effect.

“For every job created, more will be created in other sectors — a ripple effect,” Schuetter said.

The downside, he said, is the concern about emissions.

“We’re looking at all these concerns, negative as well as positive,” Schuetter said.

Utilities service board members are also in the process of hiring an outside consultant and looking at other companies to do an environmental assessment, Schuetter said.

“To this point, they’ve (city officials) been really interested in it as a finance move for the city,” Breedlove said.

Now, he said, they have had to ponder the proposal further because of activism and local doctors speaking out.

On HDC’s website, Jasper doctor Norma Kreilein said Twisted Oak’s online information on dioxins, which arise from biomass burning, is misleading.

“Dioxins are some of the most hazardous substances known to man, and respect for this fact is not hype,” Kreilein said on the website.

Miscanthus grass, the crop that would be burned, causes a major problem, Breedlove said. It harbors an insect, the western corn rootworm beetle, which damages corn crops.

“It’s called the billion-dollar bug because it does so much damage,” Breedlove said.
As southern Indiana is a farming area heavily invested in corn, Breedlove said he is concerned for local farmers.

The beetle, however, is already in southern Indiana, Schuetter said, and local farmers have discussed their concerns with him.

He said they told him a simple application of pesticide does the trick.

“Our question is, how do fertilizer and pesticides affect emissions?” Schuetter said.

He said utilities board members are looking at the specifics of the miscanthus plant.

“They did pick a fairly good one to use,” said sophomore Nick McKay, research coordinator and co-vice president for Coal Free IU. “But then again, it depends on location.”

Ideally, he said, the seed stock used for biomass should be a kind of grass that doesn’t require many herbicides, pesticides or fertilizer. Biomass, he said, is not always good or bad.

“To use the phrase ‘biomass’ in generalized terms is not accurate,” Schuetter said.

While shredded tires and poultry litter are biomass, for example, the city would never consider using those, he said.   

Eventually, the utilities board will present an opinion to the city council noting the pros and cons.

“The city council has the final say,” Schuetter said.