by Jennifer Ffrench Parker Cross Roads News
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Hold off for 60 days. That is the recommendation of the DeKalb District 5 Community Council on Green Energy Partners’ application to build a $60 million biomass gasification plant in Lithonia.
George Turner, the council’s vice chairman, said it became clear during their Feb. 14 meeting at the Redan-Trotti Library that more discussion is needed.
“We heard from the developer’s viewpoint and he painted it as rosy, but the residents have a lot of concerns,” Turner said. “We are recommending a full-cycle deferral to the Planning Commission and the Board of Commissioners.”
The application will go to the DeKalb Planning Commission’s March 1 meeting and to the Board of Commissioners on March 22.
At numerous community meetings since the summer, residents have been vocal in their opposition to the plant.
They said enough is not known about the health risks and that if the plant was good for the community, the developers would not bring it their community.
Lithonia resident Renee Cali said the Board of Commissioners needs to vote “no” on the project.
“If it is something wonderful, don’t you think they would have one in Buckhead? We are not dummies. We don’t want it.”
Turner said the Community Council is recommending a full-cycle deferral to give more opportunities for discussion.
Turner said that Commissioner Lee May had a meeting on Feb. 7, but Commissioner Stan Watson has not yet scheduled a meeting and that he may want to hear from someone with a technical and scientific background.
Watson said Thursday that he had not been asked to have a meeting and doesn’t plan one at this time.
In its Jan. 5 application for a Special Land Use Permit and modification of the zoning condition, Green Energy Partners says the plant it is proposing on a 21.12-acre site at 1744 and 1770 Rogers Lake Road, just outside Lithonia’s city limits, will convert wood chips into green energy.
This is the second location it has picked for the plant. The first, a 26-acre property on Bruce Street within the city of Lithonia, was rejected by the Lithonia City Council at its Dec. 6, 2010, meeting.
The Rogers Lake Road property is zoned M-2 for heavy industrial and is across the street from the Rogers Lake Landfill.
The Green Energy Partners, which is based in Marietta, has a 20-year contract with DeKalb County to collect and convert residential tree clippings and wood chips into electricity using a non-emission gasification technology.
In its application, Green Energy says the 75-foot high, 60,000-square-foot plant will be completely enclosed and will operate round the clock seven days a week with approximately 25 employees.
“We anticipate the facility to intake eight truckloads [240 tons] of wood chips per day and have the capacity to generate 10 megawatts of power,” Patrick Ejike, chief operating office of Aku-Bata Group LLC, which is managing the county application process for Green Energy, wrote in the letter to the county.
Green Energy has said that it will take 100,000 tons of wood chips to generate 10 megawatts of electricity to power 7,000 homes.
It plans to sell the electricity to Georgia Power Co. and says the plant will generate $200,000 in revenues for DeKalb County government.
During construction, it says the plant will create 100 jobs. Once it’s completed, the company says the plant will add $50 million to the county’s tax digest.
Ejike, who is a former DeKalb County planning director who took early retirement last year, said the Rogers Lake Road site is ideal for the project.
“It’s located within a heavy industrial area, located across the street from Rogers Lake Landfill, will not negatively impact traffic circulation, and has a well-defined truck route,” he said.
He also said that the biomass process “is heavily regulated by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”
“Operations of the proposed facility must meet the state of Georgia’s requirements in order to stay in business,” the letter said.
But at a Feb. 7 meeting hosted by May, residents said the area is already overburdened with a landfill. Residents say they already battle stench from the landfill and they can’t have dogs and cats as pets.
Steve Banks, who grew up near the plant’s proposed site, said his mother still lives there.
“Seems like every time something comes along, you all want to put it in Lithonia,” he said. “Why is that? My point is, do you all ever look at somewhere else to put it. We are really concerned about this. What’s so special about that area?”
Banks, who is a minister at Big Miller Grove Baptist Church, said residents are at the meetings because they are really concerned about their kids, their neighbors.
“We’ve been in this neighborhood all our lives,” he said. “That’s not fair to our community. Have you looked anywhere else?”
Neville Anderson, Green Energy CEO, said he doesn’t understand why they should be looking elsewhere to locate the plant.
“We are talking about a process that comes from your yard,” he said. “We have looked at no place else. That’s an industrial site and we chose it.”
Anderson said the residents are reading reports about incineration of municipal solid waste and not gasification of wood chips.
He said gasification plants are being pushed by the Obama administration nationwide to generate renewable energy and that the plant will generate carbon and not ash.
“I will tell you that you have not been comparing apples to apples,” he said. “You are more comparing apples to watermelon.”
Longtime Lithonia resident Barbara Lester said residents have studied the proposal from one end to the other and can guarantee Anderson that they know everything about gasification plants and where they are located and what happens to them.
“I told you when we started this that we had some concerns, and the more I hear your presentation the more concerns I have,” she said. Lester, a former Lithonia City Council member who has lived in Lithonia for 75 years, said that the area proposed for the plant was once owned by black farmers.
“As they died out, their children inherited the land and they built homes there and they raised families and they are still out there.
“So when you are talking about truck stops and landfills, these people are going through teetotal hell just to keep their heads above water. Then you are going to tell me about a plant that go burn wood, but there ain’t go be no fire. You are going to take the stuff that is already burnt and haul it off, but there ain’t go be no dust, so if nothing goes up you don’t have to expect nothing to come down. We just don’t buy into that.”
Read more: CrossRoadsNews - Community Council wants more discussion on plant
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