More on the Gilberton coal-to-oil EIS

Yesterday I posted some thoughts about the Department of Energy's recently released environmental impact statement for WMPI's planned waste coal-to-oil refinery in Gilberton, Pa. Despite documenting numerous environmental problems associated with building the plant, the EIS recommends that the project go forward with taxpayer funding. I received a response about my post from Mike Ewall with the Philadelphia-based Energy Justice Network and wanted to share it with my readers:

The Final EIS doesn't mean any sort of environmental approval. An EIS document can say that the plant will kill half of the county within the first year of operation and there would still be no requirements for the Department of Energy to do anything but give WMPI the $100 million for it. That's just the nature of the EIS process. The document being finalized doesn't mean that the plant is safe or wise to build, or that the document is even accurate or credible, for that matter. Don't expect changes to be obvious from the bold italicized wording in the document either. For example, they admit that their Draft EIS was lying when they claimed that the prison is a "sealed facility" (section 4.1.7.7.). This is admitted only by the fact that they took this language OUT after being challenged over it (but you won't find any cross-outs for deleted language in the Final EIS).

The Final EIS being out also doesn't mean that the plant will be able to get built with the $100 million that it enables them to get, since during the four years that we helped delay the EIS through our many comments, the price tag for the plant went up by $182 million -- more than they'd be getting because of the completion of the EIS. While it was $612 million, they had every penny covered by tax dollars in one way or another, but still didn't have the investors. Now that it's an $800 million plant (and probably more than that if they were to update their figures, since prices have continued to rise for many of their basic material needs), they have to go buying off some more politicians for the public handouts that the private sector won't put on the table.

Also, the EIS cover letter fails to mention the fact that citizens have the right to appeal the Final EIS. This can be done with or without a lawyer.