PDN Owner Buys Seattle Weekly
Sound Publishing Inc., which owns the Peninsula Daily News, has purchased the Seattle Weekly. The Seattle Weekly is a free arts/politics/culture/nightlife publication which had been previously owned by Village Voice Media Holdings.
posted by Tom Harper at 1:10 AM
54 Comments:
I hate the Biomass,
Thinking about it gives me gas.
I'm tired of Kidd's trash,
Always kissing Nordland's ash!
One day soon we'll have a real Mayor,
One who cares about our clean air.
His name you all know,
Soon we'll say goodbye to Nordland's ho!
Black Press, parent company of Sound Publishing, sure owns a lot of community newspapers all over North America. 170?!
I'm guessing it's so they can sell ads for more money in their pockets.
8:36 - Lean, green, and mean!
Wow -
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/morning_call/2012/12/port-angeles-is-a-top-retirement.html
As long as they don't buy the Stranger or the Seattle Times, I'm okay with it all.
Also, PA as a retirement community? Ha ha ha ha ha! We can't even take care of the minimal needs of middle age folks, what services could we possibly offer retirees?
Hey, PA has a huge retirement community, but the monied retirement community is in Sequim, we get the dregs, except for some of the well off locals here that made it big in logging and a few other things back in the days.
Many people who "retire" to Port Angeles leave after a few years, disappointed, disillusioned and disgusted. Some reasons why transplanted retirees who can afford to leave Port Angeles will do so: The polluting Nippon mill; radio station KONP; incompetent city "leaders"; sky high utility bills and getting higher; wasteful wasteful wasteful city and port spending; crumbling infrastructure but millions spent on an ugly, useless Gateway center and waterfront promenade, neighbors who think it is okay to brand their children, Port Angeles may seem like a nice place to retire --- from a distance.
I just checked the PDN website. The lead story, the above the fold story on their website, has Port Angeles in the headline, only they left the "s" off, spelling it "Port Angele." Yep, they sure did buy themselves a real jewel with the PDN! Quality is job number on!
BBC you are just too sexy. You are a delicious, yet hyper-masculine ripple in this crazy pond of a world we live in. Adventurous semi-retired daddy chasers and single, frugal seniors from all parts dream of moving here with hopes of either snuggling with you or emulating you. Or both.
Well, if you're too stupid to make your own money, you might as well figure out a way to live off the money other people made!
If it were not for all the government grants, programs, projects and agencies located in and around Port Angeles, there would be NO Port Angeles.
Funny how the "conservatives" here can mumble on about "government waste" and "cut government spending", when their own community is the prime example of government supported "socialism".
Everyone get out and enjoy the sun.
It's sunny, sunny, sunny.
@ 6:18 AM...
Correction, I used to be sexy, and a real stud, but I'm not so sure of that anymore, haven't found a suitable mate since moving here so I live alone. What sex I get involves a party of one. :-)
Commenter at 8:36 am - If you really care about our clean air, you will concentrate on doing something about the major source of particulate matter pollution locally - woodstoves.
Commentor 3:10 PM A quick question for you: How many tons of wood are to be burned by this bio mass plant, each day?
Another: How many tons of wood are to be burned by the bio mass facility during the months of May, June, July, August and September?
And, if you'll indulge me with one more: How many tons of wood are burned in woodstoves during May, June, July, August, and Sept?
Compare the annual amounts burned by woodstoves in Port Angeles, with the amount to be burned by the biomass facility.
As you are so concerned, I look forward with you help on these questions.
The old lady next door, that I help stay in her home, has heated her modest little home with an old wood burning kitchen (cira the 30's)stove since 1946.
She uses about two cords a year, that's all I've got to report.
Well, I could also report that that sweet stubborn old country biddy next door won't let me install a new new electric heater for her, after I bought the son of a bitch.
Hell, it took me ten years to talk her into letting me paint her kitchen for her.
Rocket Mass Heaters would be a great solution for this area. They burn hot and clean while producing no smoke, just CO2 and steam. Fuel requirements are 5 to 10 times less than a normal woodstove.
Unfortunately they are relatively unknown and not listed in the building codes so there's no legal way to build them here. This is the sort of thing that I'd like to see our city council working on. Allow a way for people to build rocket mass heaters here legally with permits, subsidize replacing woodstoves with them (creating jobs), and reduce air pollution and heating costs for the people that live here. It's win-win-win and all they have to do is change some silly writing on paper.
Instead they are bending over backwards to allow a foreign company to burn the biomass that our forests need, pollute our air and sell the electricity to California because it's "green" and there are some fictional jobs created or preserved. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that producing phonebook paper is a dead industry.
And, during the warmer months of the year, when few (if any) woodstoves in Port Angeles are burning ANYTHING, this biomass facility will be burning tens of thousands of tons of wood.
Or, said another way, this biomass facility will be a new source of significant pollution.
Commenter at 9:38 am - I watch the air pollution readings that are available in almost real time and have noted that despite the biomass being burned by the 3 biomass boilers in town, the readings are low in summer and increase markedly when the weather gets cold. Not only is there a seasonal pattern to increased pollution, but a diurnal pattern at times of the day when people are stoking up their stoves.
Be thankful we aren't using coal here to make our electricity like they are in China. None of us want to live in the dark.
To commenter at 10:00 am - the three, count them - three, existing biomass boilers in Port Angeles went about their burning for decades, with nary a concern until Nippon wanted to upgrade their old boiler and air pollution conrol technology with a new boiler AND new air pollution control technology. The new technology will reduce particulate pollution. Imagine - technology has improved in the last 50 years and you can produce more with less pollution.
@ Anon 4:48 PM
All the more reason we should be looking for ways to reduce pollution from all sources including woodstoves. Rocket mass heaters are not perfect and do have some drawbacks but they are very cheap to build and very efficient in use of fuel. Less fuel used means less pollution.
Anon 7:00 PM, I notice don't mention the AMOUNT of wood being burned by the existing biomass facilities, nor the amount to be burned by the Nippon facility.
As you are so informed on the topic, please do provide the numbers so we have a real comparison of what is being discussed. How many tons per day do each of the three, count them - three existing biomass boilers use? Additionally, how many tons will the new Nippon facility consume each day?
Also, where are the air pollution monitors located, relative to these existing biomass boilers? How many are there? Obviously, if there are dozens of monitors down wind of the area, the results will be more accurate than if there is only one monitor, up wind of most of the sources.
Woodstoves? It isn't going to be much of an issue after the Nippon biomass wood burner goes on line. It will suck up most of any local wood, all by itself.
See? Problem solved!
You Enviro-Nazis don't seem to have the guts to publicly demonstrate against Nippon's Biomass, so I don't see you having the balls to ban privately owned woodstoves.
But I'd like to see you try banning woodstoves. And I'd really like to see your jackbooted thugs try and take them out of people's home. Y'al gonna a taste of hot lead!
Anon 11:24, you don't seem to get the picture. It is the foreign owned privately owned business, Nippon, that is going to take your woodstove away.
As the previous post says, you won't be able to afford the wood for your woodstove, because all the wood in the area will be going to Nippon. It will be the business/profit guys that will force that woodstove out of your house, not the enviros.
Suckers!
Replying to 10:02 commenter who fails to display background data for assertions - the air monitor at Stevens School has been collecting data for over a decade. It's situated north of the biomass boiler in Eclipse Industrial Park; east of the biomass boiler on Hwy 101; and south of the biomass boiler at Ediz Hook. In the midst of the existing boilers, in short.
https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/publications/publications/92046.pdf
This link shows the relative PM pollution contributions from different types of activities. Newer studies have confirmed and finessed these findings. Keep in mind that a single industrial facility is a small percentage of the overall 14% industrial emissions.
To Anon 10:02 am - in a more recent study, a toxicologist reported the following
http://ptleader.com/main.asp?SectionID=36&SubSectionID=55&ArticleID=31644
Don't forget woodstoves are uncontrolled, industrial facilities must spend millions on pollution controls. Your tons of wood burned analogy is not applicable.
Nippon will be burning biomass fuels, that has nothing to do with homeowners that need firewood. Get a fucking grip.
Washington Water Power has (as far as I know it is still there) a biomass generating station over by Kettle Falls, Wa. I hauled lots of biomass fuels into that plant back in the 70's.
I'm pretty sure they are still getting along just fine with those that need firewood and we have a hell of a lot more trees than they do.
I note that STILL no AMOUNTS of wood, no data on how many tons of wood these biomass facilities are burning, is presented. Com'on now. This is the foundation of the whole issue.
As an example, if the existing boilers burn a cord of wood an hour, that would be 24 cords a day. Given these are year round operations, multiply that 24 cords by 350 (reduced for holidays) to get 8,400 cords emitting exhaust from one location, alone. A vast difference than the 3 cords a YEAR a local woodstove would burn through. There is going to be a whole lot more pollution, no matter what the technology!
And, how many woodstoves are within Port Angeles town limits?
Now, we see there are more than one biomass boilers in town, so, start multiplying those numbers. But, by how much?
Again, how many tons will the Nippon facility be burning each day? I'll bet it is more that 50 cords a day.
Yes, technology does reduce some forms of pollution, but you will still be just as dead if you pipe the exhaust from your car into your house.
Reply to 9:43 am - I guess I'm not clear why we're not dead yet from the existing biomass boilers with older air pollution controls after decades of operation. They've not even been on the biomass radar nor have ttheir emissions shows up in the monitoring data despite the large number of tons of biomass burned. They can do it cleanly.
reply to 9:43 - you don't provide numbers ever, but I'll do my homework even if you don't. Do Thespians ever do homework assignments?
If an average moisture content ton of douglas fir weighs 3500 pounds and there are 2900 homes in Clallam County using wood for heat according to most recent census data, 10,150,000 pounds of wood are burned in the cold months (assuming 1 cord of wood per household). That amount of firewood produces 63 tons of particulate matter pollution, or about 16 tons per month.
Nippon will produce about 3 tons per month of pollution.
Back to my original thesis, if you really want to be effective in reducing pollution - concentrate on the bigger problem.
Good news everyone! Black carbon produced primarily by diesel engines and wood fires are causing 2 to 3 times more global warming than we thought!
Good thing we'll soon have lots of big diesel trucks driving all over the peninsula to haul biomass to the new incinerator, and nothing being done about inefficient, polluting wood stoves all over town.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/science/earth/burning-fuel-particles-do-more-damage-to-climate-than-thought-study-says.html
The EPA's 2012 report in Chapter 5 entitled Observational Data for Black Carbon (BC)states "Long term trends in estimated ambient concentrations derived from BC in sediments of the New York Adirondacks and Lake Michigan show recent maximum
concentrations occurred in the early- to mid-1900s," i.e. trend is declining.
"If an average moisture content ton of douglas fir weighs 3500 pounds.."
Hunh? So, a ton actually weighs 3,500 pounds?
Interestingly, still no figures are given for how many tons of wood Nippon is going to burn. We're given the tons of pollution it is supposed to emit, but somehow the actual figures for how much wood it will burn are not important?
And, if we're going to include all woodstoves in Clallam County, then we might as well include all the bio mass facilities in Clallam County. How much wood do ALL the biomass facilities in Clallam County burn, each month?
Apples to apples, and all that.
It's hardly surprising the trend is declining with increasing requirement for pollution controls on vehicles.
The point of the new study is that the effect of black carbon is much stronger than previously estimated which makes it even more important to reduce the amount that is generated.
Putting more diesel trucks on the roads to haul biomass and burning more biomass to generate electricity is going to produce more black carbon.
reply to 10:29 am - good catch, my typo. Cord, not ton weighs 3500 pounds. Annually 1,800,000 tons of wood are harvested in Clallam County, 477,000 to 761,000 tons of which are waste which can't be sawn into lumber according to Washington State University's Chen in 2006. It's the waste Nippon will use, rather than loggers burning it in the woods. You allege burning that waste in a biomass boiler and burning wood in a woodstove is an apples to apples comparison, BUT IT IS NOT. The boilers much install and use very efficient pollution control technology and emit a fraction per pound of wood burned than a woodstove burns.
A lot of folks claim that NOT burning the waste would be worse because of methane produced by anaerobic decomposition. Can you cite any papers proving or disproving that?
The arguments I've seen for leaving the waste onsite say that piling up the biomass at the incinerator would cause the same problem, the waste could be spread out on the forest floor to reduce anaerobic conditions, and the emissions from burning are a sudden large amount compared to a long slow decomposition in place.
Anon 1:21, I have never said "burning that waste in a biomass boiler and burning wood in a woodstove is an apples to apples comparison". What I'm trying to point out is that the VOLUMES burned at the biomass facilities ADD to, and INCREASE the air pollution in the area.
If the biomass facilities burn 1 cord more than before they were built, they INCREASE the air pollution to the area. If these biomass facilities emit half as much pollution because of efficencies, but burn 3 times as much more wood, they still are increasing the volume of air pollution. If the biomass facilities burn many thousands of tons of wood for the 5 or 6 months of "warm season" when few woodstoves are being used, this is an INCREASE in air pollution.
And, these biomass facilities IN Port Angeles emit the pollution into the immediate area where there are relatively few woodstoves. You have avoided the major issues involved in this discussion: the total volume of the wood being burned by the Nippon and other biomass facilities WITHIN Port Angeles each year, AND the total number of woodstoves WITHIN Port Angeles.
I've watched the machines grind up the "wastes" in the logged areas, and truck it out. I know very well what is being done.
reply to 9:51 am - There were a lot of ifs in that last statement.
I know that more biomass will be burned in the boiler, but I also know that the old boiler and it's outdated air pollution control technology will be replaced with state of the art control technology with triple filtration on the new replacement boiler - emissions will be controlled by a multiclone followed by an electrostatic precipitator in conjunction with a condensing economizer.
Even burning more biomass, the emissions from the new boiler will reduce particulate matter from the facility by 58 tons per year.
Just as another commenter mentioned, pollution controls on modern vehicles have done a lot to reduce black carbon emissions over the years. It's possible technology has progressed for boilers too?
a little factoid - biomass boilers proliferated during President Jimmy Carter's administration when incentives were provided for their development - does that sound familiar? His energy policy stated "the Government will provide increased funding for photovoltaic systems, solar space cooling and other solar buildings technologies, small wind energy conversion systems, and demonstration projects on wood-derived biomass."
"The EPA's 2012 report in Chapter 5 entitled Observational Data for Black Carbon (BC)states "Long term trends in estimated ambient concentrations derived from BC in sediments of the New York Adirondacks and Lake Michigan show recent maximum
concentrations occurred in the early- to mid-1900s," i.e. trend is declining."
What conclusions are you deriving from this? Are you trying to say that there are less fossil fuels being burned in the Us , as compared to the " early to mid-1900s"? Less industrial activity? Fewer cars on the road than compared to the " early to mid-1900s"??
EPA published that conclusion - that long term trends in estimated ambient concentrations derived from black carbon in sediments of the New York Adirondacks and Lake Michigan show recent maximum concentrations occurred in the early- to mid-1900s.
I know that since the early-to mid-1900s more fossil fuels are being burned in the US, more industrial activity has occurred and that that are many more cars on the road since that time, YET black carbon in sediments indicate a declining trend in ambient concentrations.
I'm concluding that improved air pollution control technologies may account for this decline in black carbon deposition despite increases in fuel consumption, vehicle miles traveled and industrial activity.
more for 10:33 am - I wasnt' too crazy to think United Stated black carbon deposition rate may have peaked in early to mid-1900s.
Novakov, Ramnthan and Hansen for the Ernes Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory stated "We estimate historical trends of fossil-fuel BC emissions in six regions that represent about two-thirds of present day
emissions and extrapolate these to global emissions from 1875 onward. Qualitative features in
these trends show rapid increase in the latter part of the 1800s, the leveling off in the first half of
the 1900s, and the re-acceleration in the past 50 years as China and India developed."
From this I would conclude that China and India could use some of the US's help in developing effective air pollution control equipment.
"Black Carbon Pollution Emerges As Major Player In Global Warming
Mar. 24, 2008 — Black carbon, a form of particulate air pollution most often produced from biomass burning, cooking with solid fuels and diesel exhaust, has a warming effect in the atmosphere three to four times greater than prevailing estimates, according to scientists in an upcoming review article in the journal Nature Geoscience."
Right.
I do not dispute that the BC warming effect is greater than originally estimated. The warming effect is a calculated number in models and getting it correct is important because it's got a logrithmic effect in predicting global warming. But the calculated warming effect from BC is an entirely separate matter from my point that the atmospheric concentration of BC produced by activities in the U.S. has declined per the studies cited.
If you look at trends for particulate matter (which includes BC) data collected on the Olympic Peninsula, you would note decreasing trends EXCEPT for measurements taken on Cheeka Peak
(a site on the Makah Reservation). That site measures what is blowing in from the west.
More on China's contribution to Clallam County
http://aliciapatterson.org/stories/china%E2%80%99s-rise-creates-clouds-us-pollution
Just so everyone understands, Black Carbon is essentially soot, and is measured differently than CO2, which HAS risen dramatically as humans have dramatically increased the burning of fossil fuels.
To think that "modern technology" has reduced CO2 emissions is false. And, the Nippon biomass plant will increase CO2 emissions.
I didn't think we were talking about carbon dioxide, but rather black carbon. I recognize a classic "pivot" strategy in discussions when I see one.
comment to 9:12 - and if you really want to be effective in choosing measures to control CO2 emissions, Table 3 on Page 18 will help you with your choices. Instead of feel-good measures, be the last of your kind.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/environment_impact/2009/07/carbon%20legacy.pdf
Given that emissions from human generated activities have more than doubled the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in the last 150 years, which has resulted in climate changes, mass species extinctions, ocean acidification, devastation of huge tracts of forests, property damage and more, we can accept that CO2 is a major type of air pollution. And that the Nippon biomass facility is going to significantly increase the amount of CO2 emissions it releases by the increase in the amount of wood it will be burning.
And, that you are trying to say that "modern technology" will make it all okay, because it reduces air pollution.
Yes, it will reduce some forms of emissions. But, it the totality of the impacts created, the expansion of the biomass facilities at Nippon will absolutely increase air pollution.
Had Nippon been really interested in "green energy", they would have pursued utilizing the "tidal power" their location would have facilitated. That would have "saved jobs", and NOT contributed to the dire circumstances humanity currently finds itself in.
Successful humans have adapted to dire changes in the past. Anthropologists find that that's when our brains developed most quickly. We may see an influx of adaptable folks to the Olympic Peninsula based on the footnote in Table A-1 of
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/shorelines/smp/handbook/sea_level_guidance.pdf
Meanwhile, I'm heading to warmer climes to soak up some deadly UV rays for a month. It's been swell talking to you.
Post a Comment
<< Home