By Paul Connett, Binghamton and John Ruspantini, Endicott.
June 28, 2020
Press & Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton NY, page A11.
Haridas Varma (“Let’s see evidence of plant’s danger,” June 14) argues that there is no need for theoretical estimates of emissions from the SungEel facility because “There are hundreds of incinerators of this type around the world.”
There are not. We have only two sources of information: SungEel’s plant in South Korea, and burning lithium- ion batteries in the lab.
Unfortunately, the emissions data used by the DEC grossly underestimated emissions like dioxins, hydrogen fluoride and PFAS. Now late in the day, the DEC is asking for better measurements of dioxins and PFAS.
Based on lithium-ion battery burning in the lab, the hydrogen fluoride that will be produced in the Endicott project will be up to 100 pounds per hour. This poses a threat to workers if there is any leak in the pipework, and also a threat to the local population if the wet scrubber is not working perfectly all the time.
The SungEel facility is the first-of-its-kind in the USA, and its emission data is not well characterized. This is an ongoing experiment, and we argue that operating this facility in Endicott across the road from where people live and adjacent to where kids play baseball is not the place to run this experiment.
NoBurnBroome 