Stop Lethal Incinerators in Downtown Seattle!

PUBLIC MEETING – MAY 4th 7-9pm

LABOR TEMPLE (Hall 8), 2800 1ST AVE. at Broad St.

Two Seattle Steam incinerators threaten to turn downtown Seattle into a Lethal Pollution Zone. One incinerator near Pike Place market is already burning “dirty” waste wood. The huge 50MW, $80M incinerator planned near Pioneer Square would emit killer particle pollution and more than 200,000 tons per year of CO₂.

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Join us to fight both incinerators!! Stop pollution in downtown Seattle so lethal it can kill “on the very day” of exposure. _{Source: American Lung Assn.}

1. Pike Place Market incinerator: Burning wood emits more particulate matter (PM) than coal combustion. _{Source: industry fillings and analyses accepted by EPA}
2. Pioneer Square incinerator: Would emit 166 tons per year of PM. _{Source: DOE EIS, 6/10}
3. Both incinerators: “Short term exposure to particle pollution can kill”. _{Source: ALA State of the Air Report-2008}
4. Both incinerators: PM can kill on the same day as exposure, when PM levels are high. _{Source: ALA}
5. Both incinerators: PM is a health hazard with no safe level of exposure. _{Sources: American Heart Association & EPA}
6. Both incinerators: Health effects of PM: premature death, heart attacks, cancer, lung function changes in children, heart arrhythmias, chronic lung disease, higher ER admissions. _{Source: EPA}
7. Both incinerators: The smallest PM, nano-PM, is the most dangerous PM. Source: AHA
8. Both incinerators: No pollution control device can effectively reduce nano-PM. Sources: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD, Cambridge, MA, and Air & Waste Management Association.
9. Both incinerators: Nano-PM is completely unregulated. Source: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD and WA air pollution agencies
10. Both incinerators: Nano-PM is so small it enters our blood directly through our lungs—and attacks our bodies systemically. Source: American Lung Association State of the Air Report-2008
11. Both incinerators: Nano-PM is now being associated with birth defects, lupus, and Alzheimer’s. Sources: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD, Cambridge, MA and Dr. Graham Cliff, UK
12. Both incinerators: Nano-PM is not stopped by any human body barriers, including the blood-brain barrier and the placenta. Source: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD, Cambridge, MA
13. Pike Place Market incinerator: Proportionately more most dangerous nano-PM is emitted than PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 at the higher temperatures of modern biomass incinerators. Source: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD
14. Pike Place Market incinerator: Burning wood emits more CO₂ than burning coal, per unit of energy produced. CO₂ is the leading greenhouse gas causing climate change. Source: Manomet study, Boston, MA, 6/10.
15. Pioneer Square incinerator: 207,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide would be emitted. _{Source: DOE EIS.}
16. Both incinerators: No pollution control devices are available to reduce or eliminate CO₂ emissions.
17. Pike Place Market incinerator: Burning wood emits more nitrogen oxides (NOx) than burning coal, per unit of energy produced, according to industry filings and analyses accepted by the EPA.
18. Pioneer Square incinerator: Would emit 31 tons per year of NOx and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). _{Source; DOE EIS, 6/10}
19. Both incinerators: NOx and VOCs cause ground level ozone that causes asthma in children. Source: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD, Cambridge, MA
20. Pike Place Market incinerator: Wood construction debris (“urban wood”) can be contaminated with toxic substances including asbestos, resins, and glues that defy industry attempts at removal.
21. Pike Place Market incinerator: Wood combustion emits dioxin. Dioxin has been shown to produce cancer at far lower concentrations than any of the more than 600 other chemicals EPA has studied. Sources: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry & EPA.
22. Pioneer Square incinerator: Seattle Steam has been awarded an $18.75M federal grant from the Department of Energy. _{Source: Seattle Steam website and press accounts}
23. Citizen bail-outs of a highly polluting industry make no sense in a time of budget free-fall—or ever.

Join thousands of ordinary folks across the state fiercely fighting incinerators proposed for their towns and cities. The campaigns have seen mass citizen meetings, street protests, confrontational government hearings, newspaper ads, front-page news coverage, and lawsuits filed by top environmental attorneys.

!!MASON COUNTY DEFEATS HUGE INCINERATOR!!

Local citizens have defeated a giant transnational corporation planning a 65MW incinerator for Mason County. Adage announced on March 14, 2011 it was abandoning plans to build the highly polluting plant outside Shelton. The incinerator would have emitted 600,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide pollution and more than 100 tons per year of particulate matter. Furious citizens mounted a petition drive and hired Dave Bricklin of Seattle to lead a legal challenge. Three large incinerators are still planned for the Olympic Peninsula in Port Townsend, Port Angeles and another for Shelton. Lawsuits have been filed against two. A lawsuit is planned against the third.

!!EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE INCINERATOR DEFEATED!!

Local citizens and students have also defeated a biomass gasification incinerator slated for the campus of Evergreen State College near Olympia. Amid student protests and community uproar, the college announced on April 1, 2011 it was withdrawing plans for the controversial burner. It would have stoked climate change with its carbon dioxide emissions and threatened human lives with particulate matter (PM) pollution.

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