Governor Carney: Stop Greenwashing and Say NO to Biogas (Send A Letter to Gov. Carney Below)

Perdue has teamed up with Bioenergy DevCo to sell Delawareans a greenwashed nightmare. They want to build a massive industrial complex to produce explosive factory farm biogas on Seaford Road, between Seaford and Laurel– in a residential area. Perdue sees this as yet another chance to prop up their unsustainable chicken factory farm model, and they’re trying hard to greenwash this project as “renewable.”

If approved, this factory farm biogas scheme would accept waste from states across the region and entrench factory farming by creating a market for their waste. It would mean more traffic and more pollution for our communities. 

Send a message urging Governor Carney to say no to factory farm biogas in Delaware!

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Governor Carney: Protect our community; say no to biogas

Dear Governor Carney,

A company called Bioenergy DevCo wants to truck hundreds of thousands of tons of pollution-laden poultry slaughterhouse waste from at least three states to a plant on Seaford Road, between Seaford and Laurel. At this new industrial plant, the company plans to extract methane gas from the waste to sell on the Chesapeake Utilities’ pipelines.

Here are five reasons I am concerned about this dangerous refinery:

1. Traffic and the safety of our roads: The methane refinery planned for Seaford Road would bring at as many as 65,000 heavy-duty truck trips (180 every single day) per year to local roads, making driving in the area more frustrating and dangerous.

2. The air we breathe: The air pollution brought to the area by the methane refinery would be like the air pollution brought by any other fuel producing plants: smog-forming nitrogen oxides, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide. These chemicals are known to cause a variety of respiratory ailments, such as asthma, and are linked to thousands of deaths across the United States each year.

3. The water we drink: When the waste trucked to Seaford Road seeps into the ground, through mismanagement or land application, it could pollute our water with nitrates. Nitrates have been linked to cancers, birth defects, miscarriages, and “blue baby syndrome.” Delaware already leads the nation in wells contaminated by nitrates. Delaware also ranks among the worst states in the nation for the rate at which its children suffer from disabilities and developmental delays. Both of these problems have been associated with nitrates. Both the waste processed by Bioenergy DevCo, and the byproduct left behind after methane extraction, would be rich in nitrates.

4. Bringing harmful waste into our communities: The methane refinery would leave behind hundreds of thousands of tons of solid and liquid waste, which the company claims it will sell as fertilizer. If spread on to local fields or allowed to escape the project site, this byproduct could further pollute nearby waterways and drinking water, harming both people and wildlife. More than 90 percent of Delaware’s waterways are already considered unfit for fishing or swimming under standards set by the Clean Water Act. The same chemicals that would be found in the byproduct left behind by the refinery are to blame.

5. Environmental injustice: The community surrounding the proposed methane refinery is home to people of color at almost twice the rate of Sussex County as a whole and home to people living in poverty at almost three times the rate of Sussex County as a whole. To place a dirty and dangerous industrial plant in this vulnerable residential community is simply unjust.

As governor, you have both the power and the responsibility to protect residents from this biogas scheme. Permitting Bioenergy to profit off of Perdue’s pollution, all while generating more pollution, is irresponsible and unconscionable. Say NO to biogas in Delaware.

Sincerely,

[First Name] [Last Name]