Community Press, October 2002 
  
Lounsberry Power Plant
by "Concerned Citizens of Tioga County"

(Editor's Note: Twin Tier Power, LLC, based in Houston, Texas, wants to construct and operate a 520 megawatt combined-cycle, natural gas-fired electric generating facility at the Lounsberry Industrial site.)

 If you still feel that our facts about the Lounsberry Power Plant are distorted and greatly exaggerated, then  go to the Cady Library in Nichols and read the Twin Tier Power's Pre-Application Report that is there for the public to read. Do not plan to just drop in and glance through this tidbit. It will take you, as it did us, days to read through this. We got most of our basic information from that report. 

 Twin Tier Power cited the power plant at Bridgeport, Connecticut, as an example of a state-of-the-art facility. This was so important to Twin Tier Power that they took a handful of key people up there to show them the facility. So, we went to the EPA of Connecticut and got the latest operating report on that power plant, seeing this was the facility that they were pushing. This is where we got the information on the amount of pollution the facility emits per year. 

 We checked with several other facilities around the country and found it to be somewhat cleaner than the others, but we chose to use their report to make a fair comparison. After all  it is the state-of-the-art and they used it as their example, so why not stick with it ourselves.

 There was a fellow that wrote in another paper that the 4.3 millions gallons of water a day was  exaggerated, because much of that will come back down in the form of rain. This is correct, some will come back down in our valley, rain mixed with filth and soot, better known as pollution. Inside this soot will be nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds  - does this stuff sound familiar? Yes, it's acid rain! Now throw in a little betx, that's short for benzine, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, they're well known for being carcinogenics, causing cancer and leukemia, then if that's not enough there will be particulate matter which is so fine that when you breath it in, it stays in your lungs and delivers the afore mentioned chemicals to your bloodstream.

  It has been explained to us by geologists that the aquifer feeds the river. Drawing large amounts of water out of the aquifer in one area will cause a slight reverse effect, meaning the river will seep back into the confined aquifer through what is called fractures in the subsurface. Having all this pollution falling around us in the form of acid rain, do you think this will not get into the drinking water sooner or later?

  While it is true that the old coal generators are great polluters, why not encourage the existing coal facilities to improve and expand and help them come up closer to EPA standards, rather than building in other areas that aren't polluted. There are many new ways to improve their pollution emissions.

 There is a proposal to ban all signs on public and private property in a local town. These people just won't quit, will they? We pay them through our taxes, and still they feel we shouldn't have an opinion. Anyone wishing to have a sign opposing the Lounsberry Power Plant please drop us a letter at P.O. Box 92, Apalachin, New York, 13732. Give us your name and telephone number, and someone will contact you. Our Web site is home.stny.rr.com/cctc; 

 God Bless America, and every freedom fighter, as  that's what makes America so great!


  The Community Press
a free newspaper, published monthly
serving the Tioga County, New York, area
Copyright 2002 Brown Enterprise and Marketing