HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 1062.044 2006-2008
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Testimony of James L. Johnson, Jr.
April 17, 2008
Contact at yachtlove(a~hotmail.com
I am a kindergarten teacher at Hookena. Elementary School.
I was a elected as city commissioner in the Portland metropolitan area many
years ago when one of these garbage burners was being planned to be built
in my community to burn Portland's garbage for the new thirty years.
Research soon showed that garbage burners (they called them Resource
Recovery Facilities back then) are the worst imaginable way to deal with
solid waste.
To start off, it is amazing that any responsible official ,given our knowledge
now of the need to stop polluting our planet, would advocate burning the
dirtiest fuel known to man.
It is not simply just an issue of garbage in-garbage out. The very process of
burning garbage as a fuel converts many of the substances in the
wastestream into the most toxic dioxins and flurans known to man. In
addition they emit thousands of other to~c substances. No pollution control
devices have ever been put in place that has eliminated these substances
from being emitted from their tall smokestacks AND being accumulated in
the ash residue.
Nothing goes away with garbage burner. Every ton of garbage that goes into
a garbage burner comes out as air emissions or to~c ash. Extremely to~c
substances are put into the air and ash residue and these substances cause
chromosome damage, birth defects, cancers and a host of other health
related problems.
They are particularly dangerous to the elderly and the very young.
A waste to energy facility is a garbage burner and no community should be
subjected to tremendous financial burden of building and operating such a
facility that would subject our communities to such pollution of our air and
water and land.
Thank you for your thoughtful and serious consideration of this issue.
Comm. ~d~Z
Ref. To:
Rof. ~a+~_ APR 17 ~tnA
I urge you to protect your constituents from the salesmen who propose these
garbage burners and consider the long term effects of what a garbage burner
would bring about.