John,
My attack on Kelly Burch is completely valid. You were just appointed to the PA DEP when Burch and others decided to fake the testing at 2 different PA sites. If you had seen the media releases prior to the DEP doing the testing, you would see why their results didn't show anything. The area was told in advance by every media source that there was going to be on-site monitoring ahead of time. People were also informed that the DEP would be inspecting the coke ovens with an EPA inspector. It's nice to give everyone advance notice. Then the testing was done over the Christmas holidays. Do you think plants are at a reduced work load during that time? In Blake Morrison's email you can see that it was a DEP spokeswoman that told USA Today that Erie Coke was at 50%. Do you think that Kelly Burch didn't know that at the time? Do you think that affected the monitoring results?
In the USA Today article link that I've included there was a second PA site that was also tested during a plant shut down. This was a planned move by the PA DEP that Kelly Burch participated in. This was all probably planned before you took office, Sept. 08. Did you know about the coke plant being at 50% during the DEP's monitoring at Wayne School in Erie?
When you ask about my believing that switching to Coke Oven Gas from coal is worse, I don't know. That was why I asked if the news media were just blindly reporting the story as it was presented to them or if they had done any research into the actual change.
I have very good reasons to question the work and information that the PA DEP presents to the public. For 3 years I worked at stopping the World's Largest Tire Incinerator from being built in Erie, PA. The developers keep telling the media and others to let the DEP do their job.
When asked why I didn't trust the DEP, all that I had to do was mention the Erie Coke plant. It has been in Erie for years and nothing has ever been done to clean it up. In fact, the last fine that the PA DEP levied on them was for 51 thousand dollars. The Coke plant has a greater obligation on the company to identify and respond to smoke and dust emissions, DEP Northwest Regional Director Kelly Burch said. How many times has Erie Coke reported on its emissions? How many times after dark have they blown their stack? I've had my boat covered on a weekend with a couple of inchs of soot. Do you think anything was done by the DEP? That was 4 or 5 years ago.
Go to page 79 in the attached EPA pdf. It has a distance graph of Cancer Risk Isopleths Around Erie Coke. Did you know about this? Do you think that the Erie Public know about it?
In a recent email,
"About DEP - Mission Statement
"The Department of Environmental Protection’s mission is to protect Pennsylvania’s air, land and water from pollution and to provide for the health and safety of its citizens through a cleaner environment. We will work as partners with individuals, organizations, governments and businesses to prevent pollution and restore our natural resources."
Is the DEP following its own Mission Statement? Just because someone has been with the DEP for 10, 20, or 30 years doesn't mean that they are doing a good job. In fact, they have learned how to not do a good job and still keep theirs as Kelly Burch has. He did intentionally knowingly lie to the Erie Public when he stated that there were no health risks because of Toxic Air around Wayne School in Erie. See pg 79 of EPA attachment again.
You are finally taking action on Erie Coke. I do not agree with your having JD Crane do his own stack testing and emission reporting. He also has proven that numbers can be manipulated with no penalties from the DEP for doing so. Until I see proof otherwise, I do not believe much of what Kelly Burch or JD Crane tell us.
Dennis Stratton
Second Message:
Did the Erie Coke plant report on themselves?
For years, JD Crane, in the emission reports that he gave to the PA DEP, didn't add in almost half of the Coke Ovens in the calculations. In July 2008 — a month before USA TODAY did its testing outside Wayne School — Erie Coke told the DEP it previously had not accounted for emissions from 23 of its 58 coke ovens. Was Crane or the Coke plant fined for lying to the DEP? Now the DEP is again having the Coke Plant test and report on itself. Who, other than DEP Director Kelly Burch, thinks that is a good idea?
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/433474/erie_coke_dep_reach_deal_to_cut_smoke_dust_emissions
On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 3:15 PM, Hanger, John wrote:
ReplyDeleteDennis:
I appreciate your concern about the operations of erie coke and for the health of the people of erie. But I will not be silent when you accuse falsely kelly burch, a dedicated public servant, of speaking lies. Such a harsh, unfair, personal attack should beneath you.
Nobody has been more concerned about or more frustrated by erie coke emissions on erie than kelly. Kelly loves erie and its people. When I became secretary in september 2008, kelly showed me around the town and region, highlighting successes and challenges. At that time, I can assure you kelly put erie coke on my desk where the buck stops.
Kelly also wanted to get real, measured emission data to follow up on the tri data. We did testing in erie and a number of other places around pennsylvania as a result of the usa today. I am sure we did more actual testing than any state in the country.
We have made major, overdue progress on erie coke by taking the toughest line possible. We are committed to enforcing the order to the last letter. A part of that order is the immediate switching to gas because it is cleaner. Do you really think that we insisted erie coke switch from coal and to gas because coal is somehow cleaner than gas? That we were pushing a fuel switch to make emissions worse? As we communicate, agree, disagree, I urge civility.