Ethanol in the Finger Lakes?

Is it good for the environment? Is it good for the economy? Is it good for the residents of Seneca County? Give us an Environmental Impact Statement, and we'll give you our answer!!

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Questions we should be asking

Visitors to the Finger Lakes are often stunned by the natural beauty of the landscape. Though its status as a tourist destination is still in its early stages of development, there is a sense that the message is slowly getting out to the world. The infrastructure of restaurants, hotels, bed and breakfasts and wineries is expanding, and a growing number of people are choosing to build residences in the area with views of, and access to, the lakes. Proximity to Cornell University, as well renowned universities in Rochester and Syracuse, have attracted a population drawn to an environmentally benign vision of the future to replace the region's "Rust Belt" industrial past.

But the mentality of the Rust Belt is still with us in some quarters, and it threatens to undermine that promising future. Unable to compete by the rules of the marketplace, this new Rust Belt vision of progress is reliant on secret deals, government subsidies and tax breaks to outside special interests, and contempt for the interests of, and participation of the general public.

This brings us to the disaster that is slowly unfolding in Seneca County. Under the guise of promoting a forward-looking technology, residents of this beautiful area are being sold a bill of goods. They are being asked (or more accurately TOLD) to accept an Ethanol Plant, with additional and as yet undefined facilities, at the former Seneca Army Depot.

It is not surprising that many people are ready to embrace this idea. Seneca County has been suffering from a stagnant economy, and many people are open to almost any proposal that can be sold as progress, something that will allow their children to find jobs in the area, something that will ease the onerous tax burden that is bearing down on local residents. And no doubt there will be some individuals who profit from this venture, at least for a while. But it is important that residents of Seneca County not allow their desperation to keep them from ASKING QUESTIONS!!

Questions like:

1) Who is promoting this project, and why?
2) How will this benefit the general public, and how do we get information we can trust?
3) What negative impacts will this project have on the local environment, such as air and water quality, noise, traffic, safety, and wildlife, and who is studying this?
4) What negative effects will this project have on property values, and on the vision of an economy based on tourism and a desirable quality of life?
5) Why did the residents of Seneca Falls reject this same project when it was proposed for their community?

With the exception of concerned citizens, working on their own to understand the implications of this project, the only answers we are hearing are being put forward by individuals with a vested interest in promoting this project. The Seneca County IDA, which in theory is the agency charged with presiding over the environmental review process, is in fact acting more like a cheerleader. The only way to properly assess the consequences of this project, both to the local environment and to the local economy, is to require the developers of this project to produce an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), yet this is exactly the step that the IDA has gone to great lengths to prevent. Why are they so determined to keep the public from becoming aware of the consequences of this project?

A little research makes it clear. Virtually every expert in the field who is not personally profiting from this industry agrees that the ethanol is being oversold both as a solution to our future energy needs, and as an environmentally benign "green" technology. At best it is a transitional technology that will buy a few more years for the internal combustion engine, at great cost to taxpayers. More likely, it is a fraud on the American public, who are being asked to subsidize a technology that will cause severe environmental and economic damage at home and around the world, and which will leave behind it a new Rust Belt of abandoned facilities and damaged ecosystems.

Are we so desperate to embrace the promoters of this unproven technology that we won't even make them answer our questions? WE HOPE NOT!

Posted by Finger Lakes Future Alliance

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Sign our Petition for an EIS

October 22, 2007

Our position from the beginning has been that the ethanol plant project in Seneca County needs an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The more we learn about this project, the more we realize just how essential this is.

The Seneca County Industrial Development Agency (SCIDA) sees its main role as promoting industrial development---especially industrial development that benefits members of the SCIDA themselves, their family members, and their friends and business associates. However, when the SCIDA saw to it they they were named "lead agency" under SEQRA, New York's environmental review law, they took on a legal obligation to defend the public by making sure any negative environmental impacts were identified and studied.

They have shown little interest in doing that. Despite overwhelming evidence that there would be huge environmental impacts, they issued a "negative declaration", and refused to require an EIS. In effect, they gave a free pass to a huge project with enormous giveaways of public lands and taxpayer funds. It would destroy a sensitive ecosystem and degrade air and water quality. There is little evidence that this project would benefit the public in any way. But there is overwhelming evidence that there would be serious negative consequences to the public.

But it's not too late.

Under the SEQRA law, the lead agency is not just permitted, but OBLIGATED, to rescind a negative declaration when it becomes clear that the scope of the project has changed, or new information has come to light. Both of those conditions clearly apply. The project as it is now discussed is different in many respects from the preliminary documents presented by the developers, which were used as a basis for the negative declaration. These documents were full of omissions and misrepresentations.

Will the IDA do its duty and rescind the negative declaration, and now require an EIS?

Maybe---but only if we hold their feet to the fire, and hold our public officials accountable.

That's where the petitions come in. Let it be known that we demand that the IDA do its duty and RESCIND THE NEGDEC!! We need an EIS for this project!

SIGN OUR PETITION:

There are two ways to express your support for Finger Lakes Future, and demand that the IDA do the right thing and REQUIRE AN EIS :

1) Click here to sign our petition on the Care2 website.

or

2) Email us at fingerlakesfuture@gmail.com and we'll add your name to our petition. Or, if you prefer, we'll send you a pdf of our petition, suitable for gathering written signatures.