Greenie Project Violates Air-Quality Laws

(Creston, Washington) A biodiesel production facility, trumpeted by environmentalists and paid for by large injections of taxpayer funds, has committed an "egregious violation of state air-quality laws by emitting toxic methanol vapors without a permit." Also, the Washington State Department of Ecology has "serious concerns" about contamination found on the site from vegetable oil or biodiesel.

In summary, the putative clean and profitable biodiesel production facility is 1) emitting toxic vapors without a permit and 2) contaminating the site with industrial waste.

Interestingly, the Northwest Lincoln County Regional Public Development Authority, the agency that paid for the building that houses the biodiesel facility, said it never officially approved the project to be there. The site was originally constructed for an animal feed factory.

At least in this case, the greenies have been quite cavalier about environmental rules and regulations as they attempted to make their utopian alternative energy plans into a reality. So, environmentalists violate environmental laws. I'll admit a bit of schadenfreude.


[Update 04/21/06]

For clarification, I should mention that I am a big supporter of alternative energy methodologies but only under circumstances where they are proven to be economically competitive without massive public funding. To my knowledge, as of this date none of the alternative sources has been able to consistently provide massive amounts of energy at a cost comparable to fossil, hydro and nuclear.

My schadenfreude cited to in the earlier paragraph refers to the apparent conflict between two groups that ostensibly have the same goal, which is more alternative energy being produced. And since environmentalists populate both groups, I don't expect the ACLU to become involved. If, however, an environmental group were mixing it up with a private business concern, then I'd expect the ACLU to join in with the environmentalists.

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