July 1, 2020
Press Release from NoBurnBroome
On Thursday, July 2nd at 6:30 pm, a Zoom Town Hall will be hosted by NoBurnBroome.com. It is open to everyone. This conversation will be about one of the most significant threats facing the people of Endicott and surrounding communities.
Zoom Meeting Details
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85344384606
Meeting ID: 853 4438 4606
One tap mobile
+19292056099,,85344384606#
On Thursday night, NoBurnBroome experts will present their concerns about the project and will answer questions that people have. All points of view are welcome.
- Learn the dangers about storing lithium-ion batteries and using high temperature processes (i.e. a rotary kiln and afterburner) to separate the metals from the non-metallic components of the batteries.
- Can this facility impact our health, environment, property values, and future generations?
- The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation approved the legal release of at least four known human carcinogens in the Air Permit it gave SungEel in March 2020. What is the fate of these carcinogens?
- Location, Topography, and all that Rain.
Note: SungEel held the following two meetings this week
On Monday, June 29th, Sungeel held a private Zoom meeting with community leaders.
On Tuesday, June 30th, there was a Zoom Q&A with the community hosted by Danish Mir, president of SunGeel’s recycling-incineration process for lithium-ion batteries. The Zoom program capped the number of people at 100 and many were not allowed in; several questions that members of NoBurnBroome submitted were not answered. For those they did address no opportunity was given for NBB experts to challenge the answers.
Mr Mir’s responses to questions about the potential toxic emissions from the operation in Endicott were incomplete and, in many instances, incorrect. Clearly, Mir has little or no training in chemistry or toxicology. Here are three examples:
1) Mir said that the carcinogens would be “taken care of” in the afterburner and wet scrubber but at least two of these are metals (Chromium VI and Beryllium) which cannot be destroyed in combustion processes.
2) Mir trivialized the nanoparticle issue by assuming the particles of concern were water vapor when the nanoparticles released during combustion are solid particles containing metals and other toxics.
3) Mir could not answer questions about the toxic fluorinated byproducts that cannot be captured by SungEel’s air pollution equipment.
Despite Mir’s “claims” that they have had 10 years of clean operation in South Korea he offered no solid documentation about the emissions from the plant. As far as dioxins are concerned they have offered only one emission sample of 4 hours duration for 10 years of operation! Only single data points for metal emissions and no data on hundreds of other potentially very toxic emissions e.g. PFAS and other fluorinated compounds even though lithium-ion batteries are known to contain several fluorine containing substances. The Q&A is online at https://noburnbroome.com/recording-june-30-2020-sungeel-public-qa/
NoBurnBroome formed on April 15, 2020, because air emissions know no boundaries.
We don’t want any community in the county to have to deal with this kind of toxic assault in the 21st Century. It’s at times like this that we have to help each other. We want and need jobs, but not at the expense of cancers in our children, family, or neighbors. We need clean technologies that respect our health and environment.
NoBurnBroome 