Wednesday, 15 May 2002

ST. PAUL, Minn.

Shoulda known it was too quiet yesterday.

I got home only to be greeted by a long-awaited report on a “study” by the Minnesota Department of Health on ethanol pollution. After wondering out loud to my anti-ethanol colleagues why I hadn’t seen the thing, and whining about what I thought was an intentional plan to keep it out of my hands, I located the entire document online, downloaded it, and printed it — only to find a copy in my mailbox an hour later.

This is the stuff of paranoia.

Now, having read the report, I am enraged again — which seems right to me. I sometimes wonder why anger is so energizing — yet often unproductive. Living on the edge gets addictive, I’m afraid.

Oh, yes, the newspaper had written a sop piece on the study’s release a couple of weeks ago, lazily reporting from an executive summary that MDH and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency found no “exceedances” of “HRV (health risk value) criteria.” In fact, the report strongly suggests that there isn’t enough data to properly assess the health hazards.

This is the stuff that makes us crazy. Any decent reading of this thing they’re calling a study has us tearing our hair out over all its internal self-contradictions and lack of supportable conclusions — all presented as highfalutin, highly official fact, of course.

For example, the report claims that none of many dozens of chemicals measured at numerous sources is present in sufficient quantity to be hazardous to the public health. Yet, elsewhere, it recognizes the dangers of touching or inhaling the following substances emitted at the study sites: acetic acid, lactic acid, ethanol, acrolien, 2-furaldehyde, methanol, glycerol, acetaldehyde, benzene, furfural, formaldehyde, styrene, methal ethyl ketone, m.p.-tolualdehyde, crotonaldehyde, 2-furancarboxaldehyde, THC (total reduced hydrocarbons), NOx (nitrous oxides), sulfurs, dimethyl sulfide, toluene, benzaldehyde, nitro-methane, methyl butanal — and on and on though about 100 chemicals, few of them naturally occurring in the air we breathe.

Not hazardous? Here’s a hint: Anything with “aldehyde” in its name is a known carcinogen. Of course, we won’t know about that devastation until after the community has been exposed to this fouled air for years.

The other major flaw in all of this gobbledygook is that while the data for much of the report comes from state and federal environmental health experts, their work concluded in October 2000 — more than a year and a half ago. Subsequently, the company’s hired consultants challenged those measurements, and the MPCA and the MDH (and probably the feds at their behest) have relied ever since on data supplied by those company consultants and the company itself.

In other words, the company is one of the sources cited in the appendices as contributing to the conclusion that this ethanol plant is not hazardous. Surprise, surprise!

Meanwhile, just last week, the U.S. EPA reported that (according to the Associated Press), “Factories that convert corn into the gasoline additive ethanol are releasing carbon monoxide, methanol, and some carcinogens at levels ‘many times greater’ than they promised.”

And there’s more: “Recent tests have found emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) ranging from 120 tons per year for some of the smallest plants, up to 1,000 tons annually, EPA officials said. It isn’t known whether the chemicals are hazardous to nearby residents, they said.”

Not known? Then why are they even measuring this stuff? They measure it, then tell us they can’t tell us anything. For this sort of “public interest” work, the taxpayers shell out billions every year. For their money and their trouble, they get double-talk and PR spin, rather than the regulation the public deserves and expects.

Asked about all this, an MPCA official had the gall to say that Gopher State Ethanol is one of two Minnesota facilities in compliance. Based on information from October of 2000?

It’s no wonder that Joe and Jane citizen are left despairing and feeling powerless to preserve their health and, especially, the health of their children and elderly parents. These are the people who get up each day, try to make a living, and want to come home to a safe atmosphere. Some of them are even willing to fight for a safe atmosphere, but it’s an uphill battle, because everywhere you look, someone is covering their ass, mostly because they made lousy judgments to begin with.

Now we have an EPA report that makes it perfectly clear, notwithstanding the claims of this and other ethanol plants, that there are human health issues at stake, and bureaucrats and politician are trying themselves in knots to keep from admitting their massive errors and/or naivete. Even now, the company claims, as does the MPCA, that this plant is meeting all required standards.

Of course, it’s all smoke and mirrors. So are the “standards,” all written by those who have a stake in keeping them high enough to make a profit, then providing comfort and haven for regulators who don’t want to regulate.

So much for quiet, I guess.