Open Letter to Dartmouth College Trustees from Community Members
From the Upper Valley Clean Air Committee | Regarding Your Nov. 7, 2019 Meeting: Requesting That You Reverse All Plans to Build and Operate a Biomass Burning Facility in Our Neighborhoods
To the Board of Trustees, Dartmouth College.
Dear Chair Richie and Trustees,
The Upper Valley Clean Air Committee is a coalition of community members who live, work, and recreate within the area that will be impacted by the construction and 30-year operation of the biomass burning facility proposed by Dartmouth College as a “sustainable” and “green” way to help the climate. As you have heard from internationally recognized climate scientists, the biomass combustion project proposed by Dartmouth’s sustainability team will make climate change worse. It will also harm our health, safety, and well-being and is a dirty energy project being promoted as something that it is not.
We write to set forth facts about the use of combustion — biomass or biofuel as proposed — on our health, safety, and well-being, and to let you know our grave concerns about the flawed plans being discussed and presented to the public.
For the reasons set forth in this letter, we request that you vote to immediately reverse all plans to implement any new form of combustion for energy production to supply Dartmouth College.
We present the following information for your consideration:
American Lung Association & health organizations oppose biomass burning
Burning biomass, including “clean wood,” for heat emits large amounts of pollutants
● Particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), lead, mercury, other hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), and heavy metals are emitted[1]
● Pollution controls are usually minimal: “…small-scale biomass burners, like those being installed to provide heat to schools around the country, typically only have minimal controls.” www.pfpi.net/air-pollution-2
American Lung Association says move away from biomass burning for heat
● “The combustion of fossil fuels and biomass in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in the United States generates a significant share of the nation’s air pollution, threatening the health and lives of millions of people, including those who are most vulnerable to harm. The American Lung Association supports public policies to minimize the human health, particularly lung health, impacts associated with the production of heat for residential, commercial, and industrial use… The American Lung Association supports programs and policies to assist communities and individuals to reduce their exposure to indoor and outdoor air pollutants and to reduce their energy use.
● “The American Lung Association supports programs and policies to encourage a transition from fossil fuel and biomass use in the residential and commercial sectors to cleaner alternatives.”
American Lung Association’s Policy Position on Energy (2019): www.lung.org/get-involved/become-an- advocate/public-policy-position-energy.html
Upper Valley air quality should be protected
The Upper Valley’s air quality is rated as only “moderate”; www.airnow.gov; existing biomass burners include Dartmouth Sachem Village, West Lebanon (residential, wood pellets, 2008, 125 housing units) & at least 4 schools. Dartmouth has provided no baseline data on current levels of air pollution in the Upper Valley in order to establish how using biomass and/or biofuel will impact air pollution levels. Burning wood is worse for air quality than the №6 oil Dartmouth is currently burning. Dartmouth’s current oil burners are regulated underTitle V of the Clean Air Act as a major source for several pollutants coming from several different sources, including the four boilers at the power plant. See, Title V Permit TV-OP-22. While not perfect, this Title V permit contains stricter air pollution limits and monitoring requirements for the 4 oil burners than will be expected for the smaller biomass or bio-oil burners. Therefore, we have a concern that not only are the climate impacts of the bioenergy project worse than burning oil, but the air pollutants emitted into our community will be worse because the air pollution permits will be weaker.
Communities are rejecting combustion projects as false solutions to the climate crisis
“If you want to put out a fire, you don’t throw more fuel on the flames. And so it goes with our warming planet; climate policy can be complicated, but one part is straight-forward: We literally need to stop burning things.” Nisha Swinton, senior organizer at Food & Water Watch and Regina LaRocque, MD MPH, board member of the Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility. Published in Worcester (MA) Telegram and Gazette www.telegram.com/news/20190719/as-i-see-it-burning-wood-no-way-to-fight-climate-change
Dartmouth’s biomass/bioenergy combustion proposal is a no-win for the College and its public image. Public opinion across the globe is against such proposals and scientific and medical opinions back up community concerns.
Climate and Forest Impacts
Instead of joining the scientific community and calling for carbon accounting of bioenergy that closes the widely recognized “carbon accounting loophole” in regulatory and subsidy programs, Dartmouth is denying the science that shows that burning biomass and bio oils contributes to the climate crisis. This science is well documented in many peer-reviewed articles that we urge you to consider. The relevant points have been set forth in the July 5, 2019 letter to the Dartmouth community by three Dartmouth alumni urging you to cancel the biomass project. To date, the College has ignored calls from both the scientific community and local residents to scrap this ill-advised plan.
It is imperative that the Trustees take a leadership role and admit the mistake that has been made in proposing and ardently promoting bioenergy combustion in our neighborhood as something that will make Dartmouth more “green.” Instead of enhancing Dartmouth’s image, this project exposes an attempt to mislead the public with marketing claims of “sustainable” and “renewable” — meaningless terms that are countermanded by the simple facts. Continuing to push these combustion technologies — a false solution to the climate crisis that harm our health — is a bad idea. We urge you to cancel all bioenergy combustion proposals being put forth by the sustainability team as “green” solutions and to find a better way forward for our health and the planet.
Please respond to us at uppervalleycleanair@gmail.com with your response to this letter. We look forward to hearing from you.
Very truly yours,
Upper Valley Clean Air Committee
Miriam R. Osofsky, Ph.D, Hanover, NH
Aaron S.Osofsky, Hanover,NH
John G. Tuthill, Acworth, NH
Margaret E. Sheehan, Esq., Lyme, NH
Lucia Martin, Hanover, NH
Laura Simon, Wilder, VT
Lorna Brittan, Ph.D, Hanover, NH
[1] Hazardous air pollutants are a group of 187 toxics that according to EPA “are known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious health effects, such as reproductive effects or birth defects, or adverse environmental effects.”EPA has recently released the newest National Air Toxics Assessment, which characterizes emissions and ambient air concentrations of toxics around the country. The HAPs emitted in the greatest quantities by burning biomass include the organic HAPs styrene, acrolein, and formaldehyde, and the acid gases hydrofluoric acid and hydrochloric acid. www.pfpi.net
