Chapter update: Madison County Clean Power Coalition works for statewide ban on burning creosote railroad ties for energy

We will be blogging individual articles from The League Line, our quarterly newsletter

Spring 2020 issue: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/Spring2020.pdf
Index to this and other issues: http://bredl.org/theleagueline/index.htm

GRP Biomass Plant Toxic Creosote Emissions  

by Ruth Ann Tesanovich

Citizens of Madison County, Georgia became outraged in the summer of 2019 when a new biomass plant, Madison Georgia Renewable Power (GRP), broke their promise to burn only clean forest products and instead began burning creosote treated railroad ties.

We saw our air, land, and water being polluted, our health and property rights violated. We united to form the Madison County Clean Power Coalition (MCCPC) in November, 2019. Our mission is to protect the environment and advocate for communities polluted by the processing and burning of carcinogenic creosote treated wood.

Stacks of Creosote RR Ties at GRP Plant

At this time, we began to work closely with a citizens’ group from neighboring Franklin County, GA who shared similar concerns. The “twin sister GRP Biomass Plants” in our two northeast Georgia counties are the
only plants in Georgia burning creosote railroad ties for power generation.

MCCPC held public educational meetings, started social media and website pages, and organized hundreds of concerned citizens. We wrote letters to our local newspapers, attended and spoke out at county government meetings, donated time and money, placed hundreds of Stop Burning RR Ties signs
along roadsides, signed over 2500 petitions, and protested.

We became citizen watchdogs on the plant operations and filed complaints, accompanied by photos, to the Georgia Environmental Protection
Divisions which resulted in air, land and water notice of violations to plant officials.

In early January, MCCPC was proud to become the first new BREDL chapter of 2020. A lot has happened since then. We thank Lou Zeller, Jenn Galler, and Renee Cail of BREDL for offering support and traveling long distances to help us with our fight.

We are working to impose a statewide ban on burning creosote railroad ties for power generation. Those efforts have been slowed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stay tuned!

Cartoon by Lark Treadwell, Winterville GA