The Stafford R-Board Chairman announced today that the R-Board was discontinuing their pursuit of the incinerator. Congratulations are due to all who helped save Stafford today.

We still need to provide the R-Board with alternatives, so we’re not quite done yet.

August 19, 2014, 3 PM and 7 PM – Stafford Board of Supervisors and August 20th, 2014 1:30 PM R-Board Meetings

Be There and Speak Out

 On August 19th, the Stafford Board of Supervisors will be briefed on the number and content of the incinerator proposals received as a result of the May 30th Request for Proposals (RFP # 85144). Bids were due by August 4th. On August 20th, the R-Board will meet, including the new City of Fredericksburg representatives.

The BOS meetings are held at 3 PM and 7 PM, and the R-Board meeting will be at 1:30 PM. As of this time, it is not known when the briefing will be given. In all likelihood, it will be during the 3 PM session, but it does not state anything in the BOS agenda about the briefing. The BOS has posted the Agenda on the Stafford website, http://stafford.va.us/index.aspx?NID=923. The Agendas are usually not posted until a few days before the meetings.

It is imperative that as many people as possible come to either one of the meetings and speak out against the BOS awarding anything that includes thermal processes. Here are some talking points:

  • FACT: The landfill is losing money, but the revenue shortfall seems to be intentionally created and could easily be fixed.
  • FACT: Landfill dump fees charged to garbage haulers are the 2nd lowest in the region and do not cover the actual cost of processing garbage.
  • FACT: A proposed new high school (Cliff Farm) is less than 1 mile from the incinerator, and there are 2 schools (Brooke Point High School and Stafford Middle School), a hospital, and a senior center within 2 miles of the proposed incinerator.
  • FACT: Incinerators cause significant health issues for everyone, especially children, the elderly, and pregnant women; they speed up climate change; and they pollute the air, land, and water.
  • FACT: Pyrolysis, gasification, plasma arc, and other thermal processes are defined by the EPA as incinerators, despite claims made by the R-Board Chairman, Paul Milde.
  • FACT: These thermal processes have never been successfully built and implemented anywhere in the US, with only a few actually built anywhere in the world. Their record for converting garbage into waste is abysmal. If we are the first in over 2 decades to build a new incinerator, we will become known as the “Incinerator Guinea Pig of the US”.
  • FACT: The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality will issue permits to any thermal process under incinerator regulations.
  • FACT: There are schools (Brooke Point High School, Stafford Middle School, and the proposed Cliff Farm school), hospitals, senior centers, etc. within 2 miles of the proposed incinerator site.
  • FACT: Incinerators will release many toxins as a result of the incineration process. They will either go into the air, or into groundwater, or into the landfill. These toxins do not disappear when incinerated (lead, mercury, heavy metals, etc.), or they are actually created during the incineration process (microparticles, ash, and dioxins).
  • FACT: Incinerators require precious water to run operations, provide a defense against fire, and to clean pollution scrubbers. Once used, that water is too tainted to go through Stafford’s water treatment plants; it has to be disposed of in open pools that can harbor mosquitoes or be treated with pest-killing chemicals, and potentially leach into groundwater.
  • FACT: Ash from the incinerators will be highly concentrated toxic ash that must be landfilled.
  • FACT: Sewage and water hookups and the roads leading to and from the landfill are inadequate, so they will need to be upgraded; Stafford County residents would have to pay these costs. So, a company will get corporate welfare to increase their profits.
  • FACT: Stafford County ordinances prohibit importing Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) from other jurisdictions, but last year they conveniently allowed a contractor to exclude tires from the definition of MSW. Stafford almost earned the nickname the “Tire Burning Capital of the US”.

Demand that:

  • no garbage be imported from anywhere other than Fredericksburg and Stafford;
  • tires not be excluded from the definition of municipal solid waste;
  • the County not change its ordinance that prohibits importing garbage from other jurisdictions; the BOS eliminate from consideration any and all thermal options (pyrolysis, gasification, plasma arc, etc.) bid by companies;
  • the BOS only consider options that focus on recycling, reusing, and reclaiming waste; all of which create small business jobs, boost the local economy, extend the life of the landfill, and significantly reduce pollution and health risks.

Be there! The neighborhood you save may be your own.

Is an incinerator a good neighbor? Do I really have to answer that?

Incinerators are bad for the environment, plain and simple. If there is no other solution, then perhaps there is a reason to build one. Are there no other solutions? Of course there are.

StopTheStaffordIncinerator.com Goal: provide information so that Stafford and Fredericksburg residents can make an informed decision about whether placing an incinerator at the Eskimo Hill Road landfill is wise. It’s clearly NOT!

Some members of the Stafford Board of Supervisors (BOS) want a privately-owned and operated facility built at the landfill to incinerate waste to create electricity, despite the fact that no such project has ever been successfully built in the United States. Their rationale is that taxpayers must not pay increased taxes or fees at the gate to dispose of waste.

Yet, by building an incinerator, they would obligate Stafford residents to pay an estimated $7.4M to improve roads leading to the landfill, so a private company can profit from importing non-local waste, including an unlimited amount of tires, for incineration.

In addition, there are no water and sewage hookups that are capable of sustaining an incinerator. So who will pay for that? Stafford residents? City of Fredericksburg residents? More millions spent to build an incinerator. How much money will we have to pay to poison ourselves?.

The proposed incinerator would be within 2 miles of Brooke Point High School, Stafford Middle School, the Stafford Hospital, the Senior Center, and less than 1 mile from the proposed Cliff Farm School. Do we really want an incinerator near our children, our sick, and our elderly?

Would you rather pay a fee at the landfill, or slightly higher real estate taxes, or require garbage haulers  to pay the actual cost of processing garbage? Or would you rather have an incinerator that will damage your health and pollute the land you walk on, the air you breathe, and the water you drink? You decide, then tell everyone. Remember, the revenue shortfall has been caused by the current R-Board, and can just as easily be fixed by them without building an incinerator.

Questions:

StopIncinerators@Comcast.net