OPINION: The incinerator: it’s a matter of trust

Conversely, leaders who are really eager to approve something move quickly. Committees and study groups are generally considered more of a hindrance than help, only formed when legally required. Let’s cut to the chase and get this done. That’s the attitude of a group in agreement.

Given these tendencies in leadership, I’ll be utterly shocked if Elbert County commissioners vote down the proposed waste-to-energy trash incinerator near Madison County Monday night. I think commissioners in any county facing any tough vote have to deal with their emotions, their values, their pride. The incinerator proposal is not some controversial zoning request that suddenly dropped in the laps of Elbert County commissioners. No, this is really their baby. They opened the door for this thing. It would be a kind of betrayal of their own judgment to vote against their own move. To vote this down would be an admission that they were wrong to consider it.

When leaders are faced with an angry crowd and widespread public resentment, we sometimes see them swayed, but other times they seem to take on the bunker mentality, perhaps feeling that they are in the right and that they are going to bear the burden of public hate to bring a greater good to their homes, even if the price is steep politically. Anything that conflicts with this inner-group belief is merely interference for what has to be done.

Elbert County commissioners hastily scheduled a vote for Monday on the incinerator. I don’t know these gentlemen, but I do understand emotional anguish. And enduring the yard signs, the wrath, the disapproval of some long-time friends and acquaintances, these things have to be mentally and emotionally exhausting. How could they not be? If the Elbert County commissioners approve the incinerator project Monday, their hardest part is over. The matter will then become an endless morass of permitting paperwork and regulatory agency acronym agony (a legalese purgatory that lasts about a year). The matter won’t be on them anymore. It will be on the permitting company, GreenFirst, and the regulatory agencies. But if they delay the vote, they have to live with continued public debate and emotional toil.

Expect the approval.

In the meantime, a number of citizens are doing everything they can to stop it before the vote. This includes quite a few Madison County people, who feel that Madison County has nothing to gain and a lot to lose from a large trash incinerator just over a mile from the county line and the Broad River. They worry about air and water contamination, as well as hundreds of trash trucks traveling Madison County roads each week on their way to the incinerator. A petition is in the works to force a referendum on the incinerator. And Madison County residents are playing big parts in the citizens’ group spearheading opposition to the incinerator.

For all the technical talk, this thing boils down to a simple word: trust. Do you have it or not? Some are willing to trust that everything will be just fine with a major incinerator. Some are absolutely not ready to trust. You can offer all the evidence one way or another on such things and it’s hard to budge people once they’ve decided to trust or not to trust.

Incinerators exist elsewhere, but they are not commonplace methods of trash disposal. Technology is a wonderful thing. And there are certainly smart people who’ve put a lot of work into filtering pollutants from burned trash. But there’s no eyeball test for particulate matter. You can receive safety assurances, but you can’t see mercury particulates, or lead or other carcinogens released over time. You can hear from those selling and permitting the operation, but you can’t know who will be in charge of the operation in 10 or 20 years. You just have to trust in a yet-to-be determined company’s staff and technology, assuming that the facility will be appropriately regulated by the government over time and that profit motives won’t ultimately outweigh consideration of your health. This is a tough pill for many to swallow.

It’s reasonable to feel skeptical about such proposals when you hear that the facility would burn 1,200 to 1,500 tons of trash a day, as GreenFirst CEO Ernest Kaufman said Monday. Multiply 1,500 by 2,000 pounds by 365 days. That equals 1,095,000,000 pounds. So, if the facility runs every day, it could burn one billion pounds of trash a year.

One billion pounds a year of burning trash — that’s quite a heap of matter and quite a heavy dose of expected trust.

Will Elbert County commissioners move forward with the incinerator Monday, or will a group seeking a referendum on the project manage to put the decision in Elbert County citizens’ hands?

Either way, it’s a compelling issue, and a matter that could certainly have an impact beyond political borders in Northeast Georgia.

Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madison County Journal.