Welcome! Here is a handy list of documents and links you can use to get caught up!
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Why the Covanta Marion Incinerator Should Not Receive Renewable Energy Certificates
This is a position paper from the Clean Air Now coalition explaining why electricity produced from a facility that emits huge amounts of greenhouse gas, numerous toxins, and acid gases is not what was intended by Legislators when the Renewable Portfolio Standard was set up to encourage the construction of new sources of sustainable energy, such as solar, wind, and hydropower. It wastes resources, is unhealthy, and is uneconomical compared to a waste reduction approach to waste management.
Transitioning Toward Zero Waste
This is a sample waste reduction plan adapted for Oregon from one created by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance for a county in Maryland that was closing an incinerator. It provides a virtual roadmap for transitioning over a period of a few years from waste incineration to a 90% reduction in the waste stream. It describes how to make much more profitable and sustainable use of materials that had been burned and created pollution.
Energy Justice Network Fact Sheet about Covanta Marion Incinerator in Brooks, Oregon
This document was presented to Senators in the 2019 Legislative Session in opposition to the awarding of renewable energy certificates for electricity produced by the incinerator. It includes specific quantitative information about the toxic emissions from it and discusses their effects. It points out flaws in the emissions testing process.
Covanta Marion Incinerator Air Quality Permit Testimony
This document was submitted by Beyond Toxics and four other organizations to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality in November 2019 as a testimony against the draft air quality permit for the Covanta Marion incinerator. The permit allowed unhealthy levels of pollution and had other flaws.
Covanta Marion, Inc.’s Proposed Title V Air Quality Permit Renewal
This testimony from Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility and six other organizations to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality in November 2019 severely critiques the proposed permit for the Covanta Marion incinerator and provides abundant information about the harmful effects of its toxic emissions. It also deals with environmental justice problems caused by the facility.
Coalition Letter Opposing SB 451
This letter to the 2019 Legislature from nine organizations and several individuals expresses opposition to the bill that would have awarded renewable energy certificates to the Covanta Marion incinerator. It delineates numerous ways in which the incinerator harms the community, including health and climate change effects, environmental justice problems, and economic disadvantages.
Landfills are bad, but incinerators (with ash dumped in landfills) are worse.
This Energy Justice Network document advocates for “zero waste” over either incineration or landfills, but explains that incinerators are the worst. It provides pollution information about both incinerators and landfills.
Is it wise to subsidize “biogenic” carbon? Can we afford to ignore its impacts?
This Environmental Justice Network document was created as testimony in the 2019 Session of the Oregon Legislature in opposition to the granting of renewable energy certificates for the Marion Covanta incinerator. Its message is still relevant in 2020.
Incineration Results in Pollution in Each Phase of the Process
This 6-page brochure describes all of the ways that incineration creates pollution and the health impacts of that pollution.
Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility
Oregon PSR’s Environmental Health Program opposes waste incineration. We have been active in opposing incineration of municipal and medical waste in Marion County, in opposing pyrolysis proposals in Tigard and plasma gasification proposals in Arlington and other communities, and in promoting expanded programs for waste prevention and reduction, reuse, recycling, composting, and community education.
Energy Justice is the grassroots energy agenda, supporting communities threatened by polluting energy and waste technologies. Taking direction from our grassroots base and the Principles of Environmental Justice, we advocate a clean energy, zero-emission, zero-waste future for all. They have many items you may want to review!