Let Your Voice Be Heard!

For Immediate Release:

As Governor Kulongoski seeks to pass numerous climate change bills and promote Oregon as a model green economy, isn’t it ironic that officials in the same county (Marion) may soon issue decisions that prolong and perhaps expand a municipal and medical waste incinerator that will cost Willamette Valley residents and others dearly -- unless citizens speak out.

The Marion County Solid Waste Management Advisory Council (SWMAC) is likely to soon make recommendations to the County Commissioners on a Solid Waste Management Plan that will affect us for decades. The plan includes proposals that could lead to a suggested one hundred million dollar expansion to the waste incinerator. Proposals are also being considered to use toxic ash from the incinerator in the construction of county roads.

The incinerator expansion would add more toxins and another 90,000 tons of greenhouse gases annually to our air. The incinerator’s current annual release of carbon dioxide equals emissions from over 35,000 cars. In a convoluted and deceptive public relations argument, the waste management industry claims to "offset" greenhouse gases from electricity-generating fossil fuels and from landfills. In fact, burning trash to produce electricity emits greenhouse gases equivalent to fossil fuels and throws in a host of toxins besides. With regard to "offsetting" methane gas from landfills, the solution is safely composting organic waste – not incineration.

Numerous health and environmental organizations in Oregon strongly recommend waste minimization and management strategies that exclude incineration. *National experts insist that "the single largest thing a city or county can do to add to the local economy and reduce its global environmental footprint is to transform its waste stream into a resource stream." Marion County proposes putting only a tiny fraction of its resources into those efforts while investing multi-millions into incineration that will negatively affect us and our children for decades to come.

Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility has a website** with extensive valuable information on this issue. In addition, the League of Women Voters of Marion and Polk Counties and multiple co-sponsors have arranged public forums to help you learn more. The next one is at 7 PM (come earlier for information booths), February 26, Room 201, Willamette University College of Law. Please, for yourself, your children and your community, speak out now -- at the forum and to SWMAC and the County Commissioners!

*The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit founded in 1974 to advance sustainable, equitable, and community-centered economic development through research and educational activities and technical assistance. More at www.ilsr.org

** http://www.psr.org/site/PageServer?pagename=oregon_incineration

Guided by the values and expertise of medicine and public health, Physicians for Social Responsibility works to protect human life from the gravest threats to health and survival. Oregon PSR is the medical and public health voice working to prevent the use or spread of nuclear weapons and to slow, stop and reverse global warming and toxic degradation of the environment.

Please sign the petition for a nuclear free world at www.nuclearweaponsfree.orz

Local expert who can respond to these issues:

Joseph Miller, PhD, PSR board member, has extensive experience as a psychology, environmental studies and social justice educator, advocate, and writer. He is a past Chairperson of the Department of Psychology, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, where he taught from 1973 until 2008. While in Indiana, Joe worked with many different community organizations and coalitions addressing environmental, public health, and peace and social justice related issues. He moved to Portland in July 2008.

International Expert on the benefits of waste minimization and dangers of waste incineration, Dr. Paul Connett, will be available for interviews on February 25-March 2, 2009. Dr. Paul Connett is a graduate of Cambridge University and holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Dartmouth College. Over the past 23 years his research on waste management has taken him to 49 US states and 50 other countries, where he has given approximately 2000 pro bono public presentations. He has co-authored 6 peer reviewed articles on dioxin and numerous other articles on waste management. His latest article on this (Zero Waste and Sustainability) will appear in a book to be published in Italy in 2008. A series of videos Paul has produced on Zero Waste can be viewed at http://www.americanhealthstudies.org/

Dr. Connett will be featured at the upcoming Community Forum along with Jeffrey Hahn, Environmental Director of the Convanta Energy Corporation (operator of the Marion County incinerator in Brooks), February 26, 2009 at Willamette University College of Law, 7:00 pm

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February 26 Forum: Dealing with Waste in a Sustainable Community