www.nocrackerplantov.com

From an Article by Scott McCloskey, Staff Writer, Wheeling Intelligencer, January 19, 2020

MOUNDSVILLE — For some of the nearly 50 people who turned out to view a documentary film screening, the film not only provided a new perspective about how widespread the plastic waste problem is worldwide — but it also validated their concerns about the proposed PTT Global Chemical America plant for Belmont County.

The Ohio Valley citizens group, Concerned Ohio River Residents, made the educational documentary prerelease screening of “The Story of Plastic” available Saturday afternoon at the Grave Creek Mound Historical Site theater in Moundsville. The group invited dozens of invited local “decision makers” and politicians in an effort to showcase the global plastic pollution crisis that the world now faces, according to Bev Reed, an organizer of the group.

She said while the 90-minute film still has still not been released to the public by its creator, Deia Schlosberg, she is hopeful the film will be made available to the public as soon as possible. Reed said the film is “very eye opening,” and that the group members feel very fortunate to have access to an early viewing.

“The Story of Plastic” focuses on exposing the truth behind the plastic pollution crisis, according to its creators. In the film, footage shot over three continents illustrates the ongoing catastrophe: fields full of garbage, heaps of trash; rivers and seas clogged with waste; and skies choked with the runoff from plastic production and recycling processes.

The film shows interviews with experts and activists, and scenes which reveal the impact of the flood of plastic on ecosystems and communities around the world, and the global movement rising up in response.

Reed said the film was meant to highlight the risks such industry would pose to the region, if the proposed Dilles Bottom ethane cracker plant would come to fruition.

“It shows shots from around the world of communities that are drowning in plastic … and shows why we need to be alarmed,” Reed said. “This cracker plant would create about 3 billion pounds of plastic feed stock pellets per year — much of what would be used for single use plastics. It’s impacting our human health. It’s impacting animal health.

“By 2050 plastic will outweigh fish in the world’s oceans so it’s very worrisome,” she added.

Reed said another issue is the proposed cracker plant would be built by companies from overseas and the profits would not stay here. “The whole reason (companies) want to build this is to use our gas, that we have here in the shale, and to create this plastic — all for their profit,” she said.

A panel discussion was held in the theater following the film. Dr. Randi Pokladnik, a local retired environmental scientist/research chemist spoke about the impacts that plastic — especially single-use plastics — and petrochemicals have on health, and the cracker plant’s potential impact on the Ohio River. Upon her introduction to the crowd, Pokladnik quickly noted how disappointing it was not to have one local politician in attendance.

“Why don’t the local politicians show up and watch this? What are they afraid of — that they might learn something that is disturbing,” Pokladnik said. “If you go into the grocery store today, it’s hard to shop without finding everything you pick up is encased in plastic. When I was little, I remember a lot of things came in glass and there wasn’t any plastic. You used butcher paper for meats and things like that. I think we have to, … as a population, rethink the way we look at our lifestyles because so much of this is unnecessary. … If you look at it, at the end of the day there’s a choice we have to make — do we have this ‘throwaway’ lifestyle that we think we can manage sustainably or do we live on a liveable planet.”

Also as part of the panel discussion, which the group live-streamed via Facebook, Beaver County, Pennsylvania resident Terri Baumgardner discussed what it’s like living near the Shell cracker plant and a panelist from Texas who lives near petrochemical facility participated via video conferencing.

Shadyside Resident Susan Brown, who is a Concerned Ohio River Residents member, said she learned a lot from watching the film. She said she’s trying to learn more about the health issues that cracker plant could possibly create if it would indeed be built in Belmont County.

“It was educational in a lot of aspects — in realizing how global the issues are … and what we should be doing,” said Brown, who is also a former resident of Dilles Bottom. “For me it’s the justice of it. … I’m just trying to be involved and make other people aware of it,” she added.

She said the companies using all of these throwaway plastics need to be held accountable for their actions. Brown said she feels gas companies should not be able to just come into an area and do what they want and produce what they want to produce.

Organic farmer Mick Luber, who said he lives “in the middle of all that fracking out there” in Cadiz, said he thought the film was very good. “It was in-depth, and from every perspective from around the world,” he said. Luber said it show just how much companies need to be held more responsible for all of the plastic packaging going on around the world.

While no final investment decision has been made in the proposed PTT Global Chemical America plant to be located in the Dilles Bottom area of Belmont County, the plant, if constructed, would use byproducts from fracked natural gas to make polyethylene, a component of plastic. Ethane is one of the natural gas liquids found in abundance in the local natural “wet” gas stream, particularly in the Utica and Marcellus shales. The Bechtel Corporation confirmed last June that it had been selected to oversee construction of the multi-billion dollar facility if a final decision were made to construct it.

Bechtel currently is overseeing construction of Royal Dutch Shell’s cracker plant in Monaca, Pennsylvania. The proposed PTT Global Chemical America plant at Dilles Bottom, just south of Shadyside along the Ohio River, would be of similar size and scale to the Shell plant. PTT, based in Thailand, has been studying and assessing the local market since at least late 2015, when it announced it would tap into the region’s large concentration of wet gas from Marcellus and Utica shale drilling and build an ethane cracker plant at the former FirstEnergy R.E. Burger power plant site.

See also: www.nocrackerplantov.com

Environmental Groups Appeal PTT Global Chemical Permit for Proposed Cracker in Belmont County

From an Article by Jennifer Compston-Strough, Wheeling Intelligencer, January 21, 2019

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A national environmental group and three partner organizations are challenging the state’s decision to issue an air permit-to-install for a proposed petrochemical complex in Belmont County.

The Sierra Club and its partners filed an appeal Friday with the Environmental Review Appeals Commission seeking to have the permit issued on Dec. 21 vacated. If it is not overturned, the permit will allow Thailand-based PTT Global Chemical and its partner, Daelim Industrial Co. LLC of South Korea, to build an ethane cracker plant that is projected to process 1.5 million tons of ethane from the local natural gas stream annually.

Cracker plants use ethane to create ethylene, a component of plastics and chemicals such as antifreeze, solvents and cleaners, as well as many consumer products including textiles, adhesives and paints. Ethane is an abundant part of the natural gas stream found in the Utica and Marcellus shales that underlie much of Eastern Ohio and parts of West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Proponents of the facility say it would bring thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent positions to the Ohio Valley and would attract additional related industry to the region.

PTT and Daelim have invested millions of dollars in design work and planning, and to buy property at the proposed site at Dilles Bottom. However, they still have not committed to building the project, which could cost as much as $10 billion.

Opponents — such as the Sierra Club and its appeal partners the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks and the Freshwater Accountability Project along with some local residents – believe the plant would cause air and water pollution that would endanger the surrounding environment, public health and the overall climate. They say it would emit harmful amounts of particulate matter and dangerous chemicals, including benzene, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

In the appeal, the groups cite several “assignments of error” as reasons for the commission to vacate the permit. They state that Ohio EPA Director Craig Butler based issuance of the permit on a “fatally flawed” air dispersion model that does not reliably establish whether the facility will violate state and national air quality standards for multiple pollutants. The appeal also states the Ohio EPA failed to utilize certain data properly, ignored short-term peak emissions, failed to properly account for VOCs that would be emitted by flares and thermal oxidizers at the facility, and approved monitoring requirements that are insufficient to assure reasonable compliance with permit limits.

They believe the permit as issued requires inadequate frequency of stack testing and other monitoring procedures. They also say the permit’s limitations and standards lack the specificity necessary to be enforceable.

The Sierra Club and its partners said the Ohio EPA ignored testimony from dozens of concerned citizens at a public hearing on the permit that was conducted at Shadyside High School on Nov. 27. Representatives of the Sierra Club and other similar organizations were on hand for that hearing, along with about 100 other area residents and representatives of local government and organized labor. Some of those present did testify about environmental concerns linked to the project, but others supported the plan to build the plant.

“Communities shouldn’t be forced to breathe toxic, polluted air just to prop up fracked gas and petrochemical companies,” Sierra Club Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign Director Kelly Martin said in a news release Friday. “This plant, and the broader effort to build out a petrochemical hub in this area, would be a danger to clean air, public health, and our climate. The health and safety of Ohioans and those who live downstream on the Ohio River are worth more than fossil fuel industry profits.”

Lea Harper, managing director of Freshwater Accountability Project, agreed. “The Ohio EPA’s rubber stamp of the cracker plant air permit shows a total disregard for expert input and concerns of the local residents,” she said. “We are dismayed that there is not more regulatory oversight of such a toxic polluter in the Ohio River Valley.”

Lauren Packard, staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, echoed their thoughts. “These plants will contaminate Ohio River Valley communities just to create more plastic pollution,” she said. “We need to keep fossil fuels in the ground instead finding wasteful new uses for them. Industry’s plans to increase plastic production will worsen climate change and the ocean plastic crisis at the expense of Ohioans.”

According to Ohio EPA, the plant would use six ethane cracking furnaces and manufacture ethylene, high-density polyethylene and linear low-density polyethylene, which are used in plastics and chemical manufacturing. As a result of this process, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter and greenhouse gases are expected to be emitted from the plant, but Ohio EPA said it determined those pollutants would not exceed acceptable levels as defined by state and federal laws.

Ohio EPA also said its agents considered all comments received before making a final decision on the permit. The final permit and the Response to Comments document are available online at epa.ohio.gov/dapc/newpermits/issued.

Dan Williamson, spokesman for PTTGC America, declined to comment on the appeal, saying it is a legal matter. He previously lauded the issuance of the permit, saying it was an important step in the companies’ decision-making process.

The Environmental Review Appeals Commission has statewide jurisdiction to hear and resolve appeals of decisions by the directors of the Ohio EPA, the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the State Fire Marshal, the State Emergency Response Commission and county and local boards of health. Decisions of the commission can be appealed to the Franklin County Court of Appeals or to the court of appeals for the district in which a violation is alleged to have occurred. The commission meets every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for consideration and review of documents filed. Preliminary prehearing conferences are generally scheduled within 30-40 days after an appeal is filed.