ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 12, 1997 TAG: 9704140116
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WILLIAM H. MASHBURN
YOUR MARCH 18 news article (``Westvaco pours in money to clean up Jackson River'') headlined Westvaco's $150 million water-quality project that goes beyond requirements imposed on it by the Department of Environmental Quality. I am glad you publicly commended Westvaco for this effort.
It has been my pleasure to work with this company in its energy-conservation efforts, and its attitude has always been to go beyond that which was required by law in an effort to conserve energy and preserve the environment. This attitude isn't unique with this one company.
In my former position as director of the Energy Management Institute at Virginia Tech, I had the opportunity to work with many industrial firms throughout the state. At the Colonial Shipyard in Norfolk, water from the nearby river was pulled in for cooling an air compressor. It went through a heat exchanger and then back to the river. An elaborate system was installed for removing any minuscule drops of oil that might have gotten into the water. I commended that effort, and was told by one maintenance man, ``We fish this river and want it clean."
The Siemens Company in Bristol invited us in to look at heat recovery from a drying process that also had some contaminants. While the company was still in compliance for air quality, it insisted that any recommendations we developed go beyond present and future requirements. It indicated a strong desire to be a good neighbor in its community.
Another plant we visited was exhausting an enormous amount of air from one of the manufacturing areas. We pointed out that the amount was probably excessive, and were told that plant officials cared for their employees and wanted to make sure they were in a good environment.
The bottom line: This country's true environmentalists are working in our industrial plants to make the products we need and can enjoy in a safe and environmentally sound environment. It's unfortunate that they're not as vocal as many pseudo-environmentalists who are constantly in the news. It has been my experience that most of them make decisions based on emotion rather than fact, and trying to persuade them with facts is a waste of time.
When Tech was seeking to increase much-needed boiler capacity at the power plant, an exhaustive study - primarily as to which fuel to use - was undertaken by the engineering staff and top-level consultants. Natural gas would have been a very clean source. However, the gas company said pipeline capacity was already committed and a firm contract wasn't possible. This meant that in the coldest days of winter, it wouldn't be available.
This obviously wasn't an option, so engineers began to design a coal-fired boiler with controls to meet air-quality standards. This was an obvious answer to everyone but emotional environmentalists, who came out of the woodwork to proclaim that the university was getting ready to poison the university community.
Coal had been burned in the facility since the start of the university, and no graveyards for the dead or decimated land around the plant has been observed. One ``environmentalist" at a public hearing commented that because the university had experienced a spill from a cow-manure waste-disposal pond, the university shouldn't be allowed to burn coal. The connection escaped me.
To placate two of the most outspoken opponents, a meeting was set up with Tech's engineering staff and the consultants. A logical sequence of reasoning was presented as to how Tech had reached the decision to burn coal. At the end of the presentation, one opponent said he still didn't believe it. And I thought: How do you influence people who base their decisions on emotion and aren't willing to accept facts?
You would be hard pressed to find anyone in this country who doesn't wish for a pristine environment. But who is making the most effort - the people in the industrial plants who are working silently and diligently, or irrational ``environmentalists" who sit on the sidelines and take cheap shots so they can see their names in print?
William H. Mashburn is a retired professor and former director of the Energy Management Institute at Virginia Tech.
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