KARST?.....TOPO..... Landfill Liners....CO2....Pollution Solution

Our Mission

• To protect our land, water and air from pollution, by providing community oversight of, irresponsible industrial decisions and inadequate government protections.
• To practice and champion energy conservation.
• To promote the use of renewable energy sources to replace coal, oil and nuclear.
• To pontificate the need for recycling and re-use of all industrial by-products.

How we came together

Nestled in the heart of God's country is a community of neighbors and friends who united together to fight for their homes against Dairyland Power Cooperative's proposed coal waste dump. We started as neighbors and we have become a community of friends.

Composite Liners

What is Wrong with Composite Liners?

"Eventually synthetic liners will degrade and leachate collection systems will cease operation... No liner can be expected to remain impervious forever. As a result of interactions with waste, environmental effects, installation problems, and operating practices, liners eventually may degrade, tear, or crack and allow liquids to migrate out of the unit.... These technologies (double liners and leachate collection systems) may not effectively reduce the longer-term risk for landfills, especially for persistent and mobile compounds, because the containment system may only delay leachate release from the landfill until after post-closure, when the cap and leachate collection system begin to fail." ~http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/18465.html

Karst

Hydrogeology of Paleozoic bedrock.

 

The question should not be "where this dump is located" but should a coal waste dump be located anywhere in Vernon County? Landfills across this county have been notorious for polluting ground water. Why should we believe anyone who tells us it will be safe? Dairyland will tell us they are using a state of the art design. A better design than in all the other places where groundwater contamination has taken place. Of course the people that now have contaminated water in those places were also told it would be safe. Dairyland would like us to believe that a plastic and clay liner on top of a ridge is sufficient to protect the groundwater. Unfortunately our ridges are made of rock that is like Swiss Cheese to water.

Top of Hidden Valley dam. Notice the karst holes.

Because of our karst topography the potential for ground water contamination is too great to locate this material anywhere in vernon County. We would like to see Dairyland Power and Vernon County work together to develop a safe recycling alternative to dumping coal waste in any landfill located anywhere in Vernon County.

 

Just like with coffee beans versus ground coffee, running water over coal waste leaches far more toxins out than if you ran the water over lump of coal. Lets say we put the coal waste on top of a hill. Air+Water+Gravity+Time and the coal waste and water are at the bottom of the hill. It is really that simple.

This image was taken 08/19/2007 at 9:15am from the top of Seas Branch lake Dam. The landfill is on top of the ridge to the right. The proposed coal ash landfill will be on the ridge to the left. Now think back to last two summers flooding and how the water flowed down and out of the hillsides.

Let's look at the TOPO.

A 30 year,600 acare site, two miles from Viroqua?....White line is size of waste pile

What will be lost

Now let's add some coal waste mercury to this picture. When the Mercury rule is enacted as much as 80 lbs per year from the Genoa plant will be landfilled. "Methyl-mercury is formed from mercury by the action of anaerobic organisms that live in aquatic systems including lakes, rivers, wetlands, sediments, soils and the open ocean. Methyl-mercury is linked to subtle developmental deficits in children exposed in-utero such as loss of IQ points, and decreased performance in tests of language skills, memory function and attention deficits. Methyl-mercury exposure in adults has also been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease including heart attack. Some evidence also suggests that methyl-mercury can cause autoimmune effects in sensitive individuals."-wikipedia.org. It's a good thing there are no streams or lakes nearby?

The Scrubber

Consider the following.

If the Genoa scrubbers become 100% operational, they would remove about 90% of the approximately 14,000 tons of SO2 emitted by the Genoa Power Plant each year. To remove the 14,000 tons of SO2 Dairyland will release 18,800 tons of CO2 per year. Dairyland must truck in lime from approximately 200 miles away, mix it with the exhaust, and, in turn, produce approximately 200,000 cubic yards (or more) of SDA (Spray Dryer Absorber) Material that Dairyland says must be landfilled. These are the facts:

Added CO2 costs of dry scrubber
• 1 ton of lime from limestone makes 0.785 ton of CO2.
• Creating lime from limestone would add 18,840 tons each year.
• Trucking of lime from Quad Cities to Genoa = 780 tons of CO2per year.
• CO2 from diesel machinery used to quarry and crush limestone?
• CO2 from burning pulverized coal to heat limestone to 1,000°C?
• Trucking ash-lime waste to Vernon County industrial landfill?

Don’t Refuse to Reuse

The high risk of creating a superfund site in the heart of Vernon County is a liability that the citizens of Vernon County do not wish to assume. This is not an acceptable solution.

If this isn‘t acceptable, then what is?

Can we recycle coal combustion byproducts? YES!

Start with the re-use process and work backwards.

Require Dairyland Power to burn a fuel with byproduct qualities ideal for one of these reuse processes.

The only acceptable solution is 100% Re-use of Dairyland's coal waste. It is a lofty goal that we must strive to meet. The Following Re-use options are available:

Aardelite

• A technology process that agglomerates fly-ash.
• Developed many years ago when fly-ash was a major problem in the Netherlands. The Netherlands don’t have “big back yards.”
• Over 15 years the Aardelite pellets have proven to be a perfect substitute for natural gravel.
• Cold process, requiring no energy input
• Immobilizes toxic elements
• Aardelite pellets can be widely applied in the building industry as masonry (building) blocks, ready mix concrete, prefabricated concrete elements, concrete piles, bitumen bonded asphalt for road construction and pavement stones.

Universal Aggregate

• Developed in 2000
• A "zero waste" technology
• No combustion source required
• Primary reuse option is masonry bricks

Durolite

• Process melts the sludge which creates an inert, environmentally friendly glass product.
• High process temperatures destroy organic contaminants in the sludge.
• Rapid quenching of molten glass in water physically sequesters heavy metals within the glass matrix, resulting in low leaching potential.
• Glass aggregate handles and stores similar to conventional quarried aggregates.
• Proven commercial applications include Hot mix asphalt, Utility trench fill, Pozzolan (cement) substitute, Construction backfill, Roadbed construction, Blasting media, Roofing shingle granules and Ceramic floor tiles.

Greenest Brick

• 100% Fly Ash Brick is the nation's "Greenest Brick" because . . .
• It is made of pure fly ash (without having to add cement, sand, aggregates, clay or binder).
• It's kiln-free manufacturing process is emission free, in contrast to the pollutants emitted by manufacturing clay bricks and cement.
• Use Greenest Brick to recycle back to the levels currently in place. Create a factory to produce Green Bricks in Genoa. The Green Brick Company has developed a way to convert fly ash into an environmental friendly brick that can be used for building. We could use these bricks for some of our streets, public buildings or sidewalks. With proper promotion and with the Mississippi right there for barging the bricks, world wide sales should be no problem. A Green Brick Factory would create new jobs and bring more commerce to our county. In addition, extra material could be stockpiled within empty quarries, therefore potentially eliminating the need for a landfill altogether.

Some other solutions

1. Do what Europe is Doing?
From the Combined Power Plant Air Pollutant Control Mega Symposium, 2003
Many plants – most notably in Europe, where disposal of bulk materials can be a costly problem – have for decades made use of particulate collectors prior to the DFGD reaction vessel.

Typical Electrostatic Precipitator

This separates the fly ash from the Spray Dryer Absorber Material (SDA). The fly ash could then be recycled at Dairyland’s current 85% rate. The SDA Material would be less toxic and could have the same beneficial reuse options that Europe employs.

Interstate Power & Light (the Alliant Energy Iowa subsidiary) is proposing a new plant in Marshalltown, Iowa. That plant will use a particulate matter control device (an ESP-- electrostatic precipitator) prior to the scrubber to capture fly ash for recycling, in addition to a downstream bag house for pollution control. This will allow recycle of the fly ash before it is contaminated in the scrubber, and cut down the amount of waste that is landfilled.

From Dairyland’s website: www.dairynet.com/energy_resources/epri_9_07.pdf
The European Coal Production Products Association (ECPPA) lists several specific current uses for SDA
material in Europe.

• As a component of mining mortar for stabilizing underground cavities
• As an addition in the production of sand–lime bricks
• In the production of cement clinker in a special clinker production method
• As a sorbent in a wet FGD process in power plants
• As a sulfur fertilizer in agriculture

The ECPPA reports on the production and use of CCP‘s in Europe. In 2004 41% of SDA material produced
was beneficially used in non-mining applications, which are broken down into general engineering fill,
flowable fill, plant nutrition, and other uses. An additional 39% of the SDA material produced was used for
mine reclamation and restoration purposes, for a total of 80% SDA product utilization.

According to American Coal Ash Association (ACAA) statistics, in 2006 U.S. utilities produced about 1.5
million short tons of SDA material and used only about 0.14 tons, or a little over 9%.

2. Gasification
The Top 10 Things You Should Know about Gasification

1. Gasification converts coal and other domestic feedstocks into a very clean and usable gas.
2. Gasification is the cleanest of all commercial coal-based technologies.
3. Gasification helps conserve valuable water resources.
4. Gasification can readily remove volatile mercury.
5. Gasification is a proven and reliable technology.
6. Gasification costs are becoming increasingly competitive.
7. Gasification provides the lowest-cost approach for capturing carbon dioxide.
8. Gasification is a very flexible and versatile technology.
9. Gasification provides the only feasible bridge to a hydrogen economy based on coal.
10. Gasification is already a part of your everyday life.

Coal Ash in Cherry Grove Quarry. What's wrong with this picture?

For more information about Dairylands plans for a coal waste landfill in Vernon County check out the link below.

www.dontdumponus.org