Marietta DJ: Dick Yarbrough reports on Cobb plan to burn sewage sludge in Vinings

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DICK YARBROUGH: Current Cobb incinerator plans don’t pass smell test in Vinings

• Dick Yarbrough

 

It looks like the you-know-what is about to hit the fan in Vinings. Again. The county is proposing to restart the incineration of biosolids at the R.L. Sutton Water Reclamation Facility on Atlanta Road.

In sawmill English, that means burning sewage sludge composed of stuff that I best leave to your imagination along with assorted scum. After chemically removing the liquids, what is left is called biosolids and had been being incinerated. That is until 2016 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency implemented stricter emission standards.

 

The county then “decommissioned” the incinerators at the Sutton facility and had the biosolids hauled off to landfills in the metro area. The metro area now seems to have run out of landfill space and truckers have been forced to take the waste out of state to Alabama and Tennessee. According to the county, costs have quadrupled as a result. It seems you and I are prolific in producing — uh — biosolids.

 

As a result, Cobb County is proposing to once again fire up the incinerators at R. L. Sutton at a cost of $75 million and upgrade them to meet current standards. The design phase is already underway and construction is scheduled to begin in 2027 and completed in 2029. The county says the system will pay for itself in 10 years because of reduction of landfill costs. That is of small comfort to residents of Vinings. To them, it is just one more source of pollutants to inhale.

 

Vinings is adjacent to not only the Sutton plant but the R.M. Clayton Water Reclamation Plant just across the Chattahoochee River, which processes some 40% of Atlanta’s sewage sludge. Also in close proximity are an asphalt plant, a cement plant, a Waste Management site and Georgia Power’s Plant McDonough coal ash facility. Oh, and did I mention Sterigenics?

 

For years, Vinings residents were assured that the ethylene oxide they were breathing and that was being emitted by Sterigenics was okay, even when the Centers for Disease Control said ethylene oxide is a carcinogen — a cancer-causing agent. Sterigenics ended up having to shell out $35 million to settle claims against them.

 

Now, wary residents are being asked to take the county’s word that everything will be A-OK when the incinerators are fired up. And they aren’t buying it. Melissa Johnson, president of the Vinings Village Homeowners Association, and board member Woodie Wisebram say Vinings residents are being asked to “accept additional emissions without baseline data, without transparency and without meaningful assurances that public health will not be compromised.”

 

They tell me their concern is not limited to biosolid incineration alone, but to its cumulative impact when added to the other emissions the locals are inhaling. Johnson and Wisebram say Vinings residents don’t know what is currently in the air they are breathing and have requested an independent air quality testing of the potential risks of mixing emissions from the Sutton plant, the Clayton plant, the asphalt plant, the Waste Management plant, Plant McDonough and Sterigenics and having it blow across Vinings. The county has said no.

 

The county says incinerators will be designed according to current EPA regulations and that Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division would do the air quality testing for them. Wrong answer. Based on the EPD’s abysmal performance as regards the Okefenokee, I wouldn’t trust them to test a cucumber, let alone the air I breath.

 

In a political irony, the Cobb commissioner representing the Vinings area is Erick Allen. This is the same Erick Allen who as a state representative was Sterigenic’s worst nightmare. And still is. If anyone can appreciate what Vinings is facing, it is Allen.

Allen says, “I completely understand where the Vinings folks are coming from and I share their concerns. We learned from Sterigenics that public health requires trusted verification, especially when trust in agencies like the EPD is low.” Johnson agrees and says she and her associates don’t believe the testing by the Georgia EPD will be sufficient. To that, I would add trustworthy.

 

“As a county, we are caught between a rock and a hard place,” Allen told me. “We are facing a genuine crisis due to declining options for sending biosolids to landfills. We have to find a viable solution, and we have very limited options. That being said, I am not willing to move forward on blind faith. I will not support this project unless we establish a fully transparent process that includes the comprehensive air quality emissions testing. If we cannot have hard data that shows it is safe to bring these incinerators online, I will not support it. Period.”

 

That raises an interesting question: What kind of comprehensive air quality emissions testing? An independent study measuring the existing pollutants before firing up the incinerators that the Vinings residents are requesting or leaving it to the EPD as the county has indicated? Stay tuned.

One thing for sure: Having the bureaucrats say “trust us” is not an option. That’s just blowing smoke. The good folks in Vinings are dealing with enough pollutants already without having to deal with that, too.

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139.