Erie: Tires for Power

Here's another group project. In this one, the group took the focus/analysis approach to opinion writing (think Sunday paper/front of focus section).

Tell us ... what do you think of the writing, the reporting and the power project itself.

Here's the story:

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THE [TIRE] BURNING QUESTION

By: JOHN MACKOWIAK, ANNE LITHILUXA, PAM PANNONE,
RYAN GOODNOUGH, and RYAN DRONEY

School buses filled with screaming kids roll past the corner of East Lake Road and Downing Avenue seemingly nonstop. Several elementary school children navigate the sidewalk.

It's Monday afternoon, and the final school bell just rang.

Many of these little, tightly bundled up eastside Erie street trekkers are headed in the same direction. As they walk, some of them weave past the snow piles. Others walk right through the snow, wearing their hand-me-down boots.

The kids are on their way to the Boys and Girls Club.

They approach Downing Avenue and wait for the traffic to stop. The pack of youngsters quickly crosses the street and is now only about a block away from the Club.

One of the boys among the group runs his hand along a tall gray fence, knocking off snow with each step he takes.

On the other side of the fence is the proposed site for a $235 million tires-to-energy plant. Erie Renewable Energy, LLC—a company formed solely to build the tire-burning plant—has made it clear that they want Erie’s eastside to be the location of the multi-million dollar energy investment.

Every day, the facility will convert 900 tons—possibly as much as 1,000 tons—of scrap tires to energy, according to the Erie Times-News. That many tires will produce more than 90 megawatts of electricity.

90 megawatts is enough to keep the lights burning in 75,000 to 80,000 homes.
Throw in the 60 good-paying jobs that the plant will bring into the area, and it sounds like Erie is getting a pretty good deal.

A $235 million investment in one of Lake Erie’s rusty cities. 60 jobs that will pay Erie citizens some good money. And it’s an innovative energy solution.

Looks like good things are happening in Erie.

But if you dig a little deeper, the plans don’t seem so appealing.

It’s an overly used cliché, but, in all seriousness, what about the children?

“I see kids waiting on that corner to get picked up by the bus,” said Valerie Mackowiak, referring to the intersection of East Lake Road and Downing.

Valerie is a native of Erie’s eastside. She grew up on Hess Avenue, about three blocks from the proposed site.

“It’s a residential community. It’s the last place you’d think to put a factory,” she said.

Not long ago, that empty, fenced-in lot was the location of the Hammermill Paper Factory.

However, Valerie quickly clarified that when the paper factory was being built, East Erie was not a well-populated residential area.

“When the factory opened up that was probably the city limits. The houses came after Hammermill,” Mackowiak said.

The plant that ERE plans to build will “gasify” tires to make electricity. Though the developers have assured Erie residents that the gasification process won’t smell, Hammermill left a legacy of rotten odors in the city.

The smell is what most people remember about Hammermill’s long existence. As soon as you drove into the city, the stench hit you like a brick wall.

Valerie’s husband, John, said that, to him, the plant smelled like “vomit,” or “really sour milk.”

The air over Erie has cleared, now that Hammermill is gone. The smell, on the other hand, still lingers in the consciousness of many of the city’s dwellers.

“They remember the smell, and judging by the hype, the tires might be a bigger polluter. I’m sure people are afraid that a new smell will take over the eastside,” Mackowiak said.

The area hasn’t changed much since Valerie was growing up. The population has grown and become more diverse, but the eastside, especially in the area surrounding the plant site, is still inhabited by young, blue-collar families, trying to make ends meet.

And with the families come a slew of children. All of them, of course, need an education.

Within one mile of the proposed site, there are eight schools and a Boys and Girls Club. Inside the Boys and Girls club, there is a preschool.

Thousands of kids, ages 4 to 18, trying to learn—focusing on their reading, writing and arithmetic—within one mile of a facility that, each year, will release 1,450 tons of pollutants into the eastside kids’ air.

Young mothers and fathers raise their families on the eastside. They pray that their children won’t get asthma from breathing in all of the smog. With each cough and every wheeze, they fear that their child will be diagnosed with the respiratory ailment.

They would leave, but they have no place to go. Housing is cheap on the eastside. They can’t afford the moving costs or the rent in other areas.

The same is not true for people living in the wealthier neighborhoods, a little farther away from the plant. There a bunch of big, beautiful homes within walking distance from the East Lake and Downing site.

“As soon as they get started, you’ll see a lot of ‘For Sale’ signs,” Mackowiak said.

And who could blame those people for choosing to leave? Who wants a $235 million eyesore in their backyard?

ERE FILES AIR QUALITY PERMIT

The incinerator is still in the planning phases, but Erie Renewable Energy has submitted its application for an air quality permit. This permit application will be looked over by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

The company must provide all necessary paperwork for the application review to begin. Once it has been determined that the paper work is in place, the DEP will begin a technical evaluation of the data contained in the application.

The evaluation process is long and tedious. Greg Tarbell of the DEP spoke to the Erie Times-News about how the agency handles the application.

“We take a look at the technology that is being proposed. Also emission control devices being proposed. It is a kind of a test of the information that is being presented to us."

This phase of the project can take up to 9 months, but, at the same time, it could be completed in as few as 30 to 60 days.

This evaluation stage provides those living around the proposed site with an opportunity to make their voices heard. Copies of ERE’s air quality permit are available for public viewing at the City of Erie Municipal Building, the Erie County Blasco Public Library, the Erie County Iroquois Branch Library and the DEP Northwest Regional Office Records Center in Meadville, Pa.

All of the data contained in the application is derived from sources that are under the control of the interests involved in constructing the facility.

DEP Regional Director Kelly Burch has assured Northwest Pennsylvanians that they will be heavily involved in the review process.

“As with any environmental permit application, we’ll work hard to ensure the community is involved in this review and is made aware of all of the facts,” Burch said to the Erie Times-News.

THE SCIENCE OF TIRE GASIFICATION

The process of tire burning is a very technical and complicated procedure that does not, by any means, lack environmental detriment.

Dr. Sherri Mason, an Associate Professor of chemistry at SUNY Fredonia explained that ERE’s facility aims to “gasify” tires by exposing them to high temperatures, which in turn, releases hydrocarbons—the basic composition of all fossil fuels.

Once these hydrocarbon vapors are released, the energy yielded would provide the fuel necessary to boil water. The boiling water produces steam. This steam provides the power to rotate electricity-producing turbines.

Mason said that electricity usage makes up 85 percent of world’s energy needs

This proposed tire burning facility in Erie would follow the procedure detailed above. However, the energy production comes with severe health and safety ramifications.

There is a laundry list of chemicals called hazardous air pollutants that would be emitted by the plant’s everyday operations.

Dioxins, mercury, arsenic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—just to name a few.

As indicated by the Energy Justice Network, most PAHs are known to cause cancer in animals and are suspected to cause cancer, birth defects and a wide variety of other health problems in humans.

An 8-year-old quickly sucking in breath after breath—filling his lungs with PAHs—after hitting a home run in a kickball game on the field behind the Boys and Girls Club.

According to the International Association of Great Lakes Researchers, the Great Lakes contain more than one-fifth of the fresh surface water on our planet. A tire burning plant of this description would not only contaminate the air as maintained earlier, but also the fresh water supply.

“This plant is not a step toward the future as its proponents would have you think, it is a step back toward that industrial past, that past in which we were famous for having such polluted waterways,” Mason said in an email correspondence.

The facility will produce high quantities of carcinogenic and mutagenic chemicals. Mason explained that these mutation-causing chemicals that will end up in Lake Erie bioaccumulate. That means that as you climb up the food chain, the concentrations of chemicals inside the bodies of each plant and animal increases exponentially.

Even if a only small amount of chemicals is released into the air and water, a sizable amount will be found in fish, turkey and other species at the tail end of the food chain—including humans.

As we all learned in elementary school, the fundamental laws of gravity say that what goes up must come down.

Everything that is emitted into the atmosphere will be deposited at one point or another onto the Earth’s surface, whether it is in the form of dirt or rain.

Sulfur Dioxide, a particulate matter, is formed when gasoline is extracted from the oils burned off by tires. This pollutant is the leading cause of acid rain, which affects all aspects of a region’s ecosystem.

Pollution of this kind will have several long term effects. The health of the ecosystem, and of the beings living in that ecosystem, will be affected by the planned facility.

Asthmatic kids. Old folks with quickly-failing tickers. It’s tough to find the beneficiaries in this equation.

“This facility is bound to have very significant and detrimental impacts upon both air and water resources on local, regional and global scales. Simply put, it is a really bad idea,” Mason said.

The tire burning plant would affect more than just the inhabitants of Erie, PA. Due to the air shifting away from Lake Erie, the communities along the lake—northeast of Erie—might see the effects of the facility’s pollution more so than Erie.

“This is not just a concern for the people of Erie; it is more likely to affect Fredonia, NY than Erie, PA, simply because the air moves away from Erie, but into other areas. The health impacts of this plant are not just local, but regional, and due to the long-lived nature of these emissions, even global,” Mason said in her email.

Another health hazard to consider is the storage and cleansing of the tires. If the plant plans to burn 900 tons of tires a day, it will have to maintain a stock pile of them. A heap of dirty tires simply breeds unhealthiness.

“The tires that have been sitting in landfills for god knows how long will have accumulated so much gunk and grime including oil from cars, molds, and we all know that tires are vectors for mosquitoes and vermin, such as rats. The cleansing will all end up back in the lake and will remain indefinitely,” said WNY Area K.E.E.P. Organizer, Suzanne Graham.

Soot and smog would be the most visible consequences of burning tires. Both cause lung irritation, aggravated asthma, chronic bronchitis and even heart problems. And for those with pre-existing heart or lung disease, premature death is a real possibility.

Just one more thing to cause heart disease in Western New York. We’ve already got Buffalo wings and the Buffalo Bills.

RECYCLE, REDUCE, REUSE.

There are other alternatives to burning tires. Some of the other methods are more energy efficient. They can actually be truthfully referred to as recycling.

“For the record [the plant is] not renewable, nor green, in any way, shape or form, despite what the proponents advertise,” Mason said.

A lot of alternatives have been proposed. Many of these suggestions are now being practiced.

A portion of the towering heaps of tires, that have been dumped into landfills, have been handled in ways that are more efficient than burning. Old tires have been turned into running tracks, roofing shakes, safety mats, tennis courts and even new tires.

It is possible to reuse a tire through a process called “tire re-treading.” It is an effective method because 60 percent of the rubber tire material is in the casing.

Tire bald? Take it off your car, get it re-treaded and throw it right back on.

A standard car tire can be re-treaded about three times, but larger vehicle tires can be done up to as many as 12 times.

One of the premier methods for recycling tires is converting the tires into Rubberized Asphalt Concrete. RAC is made by grinding tires into crumbs and mixing it with asphalt. The results are impressive—the roads are longer lasting (up to seven years without cracking), better riding, and they reduce road noise by 50 percent to 80 percent. Per lane mile of RAC laid, 2,000 tires are recycled.

One mile of new road, 2,000 fewer tires.

Currently, California, Arizona, Florida, and Canada are using the recycled substance. If every road and highway was derived from recycled tires, landfills would begin empty and tire incinerators would start to shut down.

The Canadian province of Nova Scotia has a strong tire recycling program. It has had a strict ban on land filling and incineration since 1996.

Nova Scotia gets rid of its old tires through a process, in which a tire’s fibers and metals are removed through cryogenic freezing. The recycled the rubber is then turned into various products.

Another solution is devulcanization, a process by which rubber is broken down and recycled. It cannot be compared to incinerating because in devulcanization, the tires are combined with other ingredients, melted and hardened.

The rubber becomes a certain texture that can be made into products like boots, raincoat and, in many cases, tires.

Importing rubber to the United States is a multi-billion dollar industry. It’s clear that we have a high demand for rubber. Devulcanization might be the answer that would keep America’s supply of rubber high, while keeping the rubber industry’s jobs in the states.

OTHER TIRE BURNING EXPERIMENTS

We only know of one active dedicated-tire incinerator in the United States. It’s called Exeter Energy, located in Sterling, Connecticut. This facility burns 10 to 11 million tires a year. Just to put it into perspective—Erie plans to burn 30 million tires each year.

Exeter Energy has recieved a litany of complaints. Violations on their track record date back to 1991.

In 1991, black soot fell on homes. 1992, seven notices of violation including, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, failure to meet combustion efficiency limits and failure to submit emission exceedance reports. In 1995, two of Exeter’s incinerators exceeded their carbon monoxide limit. In 1995 alone, that happened 69 times. 2005 brought a tire fire in the rear tire pit of the facility.

Of the other three dedicated-tire incinerators that we know once existed in the United States, all have failed.

The Preston, Minn. incinerator was planned to be the world’s largest. However, due to the hard work and dedication of the Southeastern Minnesotans for Environmental Protection group, the plant was shut down in 2005.

Another tire burning plant was built in Ford Heights, Ill. The plan was to burn 3 million tires a year. It was in operation for a mere 10 days, before it went bankrupt. The facility was never reopened.

The third plant, which was erected in Modesto, Calif., was shut down after it endured an uncontrolled tire fire.

The plant proposed for Erie is three times the size of the next largest facility. Exeter in Connecticut is the largest, but if Erie Renewable Energy follows through with its plans, the factory on the corner of East Lake Road and Downing Avenue, next to the Boys and Girls Club of Erie, will dwarf the Exeter plant.

When it comes down to it, all we know for sure is that the future of Erie is uncertain.

The rest is just educated guess work and forecasting

Let’s say that Erie Renewable Energy is granted its air quality permit and they build the plant. We cannot know for sure what will happen.

Maybe it will be a huge success for Erie. The developers might see a huge profit. The company might sponsor local events. New businesses, accompanied by high-paying jobs, might migrate to the city.

It could be a good thing for Erie.

Or it might be a tragic thing for Erie and the surrounding communities. It will pollute our lake and air. Our beaches might be closed for eternity. The lakefront property on Erie’s eastside will be devalued. Children might develop severe cases of asthma. The high population of elderly people in Erie might have their lives cut short by premature death caused by the chemicals churning above the city. A tire fire might force the evacuation of the entire eastside.

It could be a very bad thing for Erie.

However, we will not know with certainty for some time to come. Not until they build the tires-to-energy plant—or until the DEP says that ERE cannot build at all.

Erie County Councilman Kyle Foust, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, adequately expressed this group’s feelings in a recent letter to the Erie Times-News.

“If nothing harmful will be emitted from the process of burning tires—as ERE indicates to the public—then the information stating such should be provided immediately. The public, especially the neighbors in the surrounding residential area and the children who attend school nearby, should not have to wait until after the application has been filed. The people who will have to live with the environmental consequences of the facility deserve that information now.”

We have a right to know the truth. The fact that ERE has not been open with us is troubling.

Even with its 60 jobs and the $235 million investment, it is likely that the tire-burning plant will do harm to the City of Erie and the surrounding commmunities.

ERE has proposed to build what will be a serious threat to the quality of life on Erie’s eastside and all along Lake Erie.

The potential costs to the community—the health and safety risks—outweigh the possible profits of a few businessmen and the uncertain benefits to a rusty city.