The fight over a potential landfill to handle waste from Dairyland Power's coal-fired power plant in Genoa shifted from the town level to the county in two meetings that took place over the last week.

On Wednesday, March 26, more than 100 residents showed up at an organizational meeting to oppose the landfill at the town of Viroqua hall, and on Saturday, March 29, Vernon Electric Cooperative held its annual meeting where about 400 people attended and many voiced their concerns about updates to Dairyland's facilities and the proposed landfill.

The March 26 meeting was organized by those who oppose the secondary choice of placing the landfill in the town of Viroqua next to the existing Vernon County landfill. But members of the town of Harmony group H.O.P.E (Harmony township Opposing Pollution of the Environment) showed up and told the group that it needs to oppose the landfill anywhere it's suggested to be sited in Vernon County.

"When we started our fight in Harmony we said that if we push it out of our backyard and you don't stand up it will come your backyard," said H.O.P.E member Scott Leum. "Well guess what? Maybe if you guys (town of Viroqua) stand up maybe the rest of the county will stand up and make them find a better way. All they did was find a better site, they didn't find a better way."

Leum and fellow H.O.P.E. member Carl Volden both said this is not a "not in my backyard" issue but a "not in anybody's backyard" issue. Leum and Volden said the solution is to not install the scrubbers and find a solution to the outdated coal-fired plant instead of investing $350 million into the 40-year-old existing plant.

Dairyland has said the scrubbers are needed to extract pollutants out of its smokestack discharge in order to comply with Environmental Protection Agency standards that were recently passed. The scrubbers will create tons of ash that currently has no commercial use and will have to be landfilled.

Volden said recycling options exist if there is time to develop them. He added that ad technologies, like coal gasification, that produce much less waste should be considered.

In fact, a number of those who were at the town of Viroqua meeting, also attended the Vernon Electric Cooperative (VEC) annual meeting at Westby High School on Saturday. VEC receives power from Dairyland.

Local resident Charles Doerr, who lives in the watershed below the Vernon County Landfill, made two motions in the new business portion of the meeting that were overwhelmingly supported by the 201 voting members who attended. Doerr said he disagreed with statements by Dairyland officials in previous meetings that there is no other technology available and there is no other choice than to install scrubbers at the Genoa facility.

"There is a better choice," said Doerr. "It is to convert our coal plant to coal gasification technology. Coal gasification is by far the cleanest coal conversion technology according to the Alberta Energy Research Institute."

Doerr's first motion included four parts and was directed at Dairyland Power. The motion stated that Dairyland should convert its Genoa facility from a pulverized coal facility to an IGCC (integrated gasification combined cycle) plant or "coal gasification" plant. Doerr said the technology is available for such a conversion and Westinghouse Plasma Corporation has already done a number of conversions. Doerr said there are five facilities operating worldwide with two in the United States, two in Europe and one in Japan.

Doerr read from a letter he had sent to the DNR pointing out the benefits of coal gasification such as reduced waste and the comparable costs to existing coal-fired plants.

Doerr's motion went on to ask Dairyland to renegotiate with the Alston company, that is providing scrubber equipment, to instead provide gasification equipment, terminate its plans to haul 22 semi loads of lime per week from 200 miles away for the scrubber and to terminate plans to site a landfill in Vernon County.

Thomas Zaremba of Wheeler, Van Sickle and Anderson of Madison, an attorney representing the VEC board at the meeting, clarified that the motions made by the membership were strictly advisory to the VEC board of directors and had no authority over the Dairyland board other than being one of 25 members of the Cooperative. VEC member Carl Volden then offered an amendment to Doerr's motion that the VEC representative on the Dairyland board, Dan Korn, request a meeting between the Dairyland board and a delegation of VEC members who have concerns about the scrubber project.

The amendment passed by a wide margin as did Doerr's motion as amended.

Doerr's second motion stated that if the elements of the previous motion are not adopted that VEC should "renegotiate our over 40-year exclusive contract with Dairyland (to buy power)." That motion also passed with little opposition.

Doerr read a couple more motions he had intended to offer regarding joining "Focus on Energy" and paying members retail rates for power they produce because VEC had already adopted those two policies earlier in the year.

Dairyland has said it needs a landfill because it has to comply with new EPA air quality standards by 2010. The scrubbers that are being installed to remove particulates from the exhaust will make the waste unusable for recycling. The scrubbers will remove more sulfur dioxide and mercury from the air, but also increase the volume of waste by as much as seven times. Dairyland initially announced the two sites with the most potential for a landfill were in the town of Harmony, but residents of the area organized by H.O.P.E made Dairyland consider working in conjunction with the Vernon County Solid Waste Department to add on to that facility.

At the town of Harmony locations Dairyland said it planned to acquire as much as 600 acres, but only about 55 acres was needed for the landfill itself. The rest of the 600 acres would be "buffer" area. Dairyland has said it would need only about 40 additional acres at the town of Viroqua site because the existing landfill already provides a buffer area.

Dairyland has been working in conjunction with county solid waste officials to start the DNR siting process, but also has continued to do water and soil testing at all three sites leaving open the option of placing the landfill at any of the three.

Dennis Brault who helped organize the meeting in the town of Viroqua said he would like to see the scrubbers at least delayed to give Dairyland and all other power companies the time to come up with recycling solutions or alternative power production methods.

"The scrubbers are being installed to remove the sulfur dioxide that causes acid rain," said Brault. "They already remove 80 percent of the sulfur with their existing technology, they will only get about another 10 percent, but they will produce an enormous amount of waste. The additional 10 percent is going to create a landfill somewhere in Vernon County. We need everyone to contact their representatives to get a moratorium on these scrubbers and push Dairyland to do the right thing and that is put in a new coal gasification plant in Genoa."

Dairyland currently recycles about 80 percent of its ash by using it for cement or road projects, but the new process will make the ash unusable plus produce more waste.

Brault said he was disappointed at a DNR hearing in Stoddard last week that gave Dairyland the air permit that it needs to get the go ahead to install the scrubber. Brault said the various departments in DNR protect only certain aspects of the environment, but no one is watching the big picture.

"The air people watch the air, the water people watch the water and the land people watch the land, but no one is looking at the overall picture," said Brault.

Another organizer, Tom Wilson, said the group should not lose hope and pointed to similar fights in the 1970's when a group of citizens stopped a nuclear power plant on the Chippewa River in northern Wisconsin. Wilson said the money that would have gone to construct the facility was used to fund energy conservation practices that reduced demand and the facility was not needed.

Volden said the pollution created by trucks to haul lime in to do the scrubbing and haul the waste to the landfill will have to be considered as part of the equation.

Area farmer Dan Peper asked about where the water that is collected at the landfill is treated. Vernon County Solid Waste Administrator Gail Frie, who was in attendance, said the water will either be treated onsite if Dairyland builds a treatment facility at the landfill or be trucked to a wastewater treatment facility offsite.

"So, what happens to the sludge that is produced once the water is treated?" asked Peper.

Frie said the waste is applied to agricultural fields and is regulated under DNR regulations.

Following Saturday’s VEC meeting, Rude commented on the ideas brought up at the co-op meeting.

“Dairyland's elected board of directors has already committed to a course of action of installing scrubbers to meet new state and federal air regulations,” Rude said. “The scrubbers are just part of several upgrades that Dairyland is undertaking to meet these new requirements. Before deciding to invest $350 million in these upgrades, the board, management and staff explored a lot of alternatives using the best advice and information available to the electric power industry.

“As a member of the state of Wisconsin task force that thoroughly studied Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plants,” Rude continued. “I am aware of many issues with this type of technology. IGCC has potential for the future, but it is just now approaching commercial availability and is being considered by very large utilities which have the wherewithal to endure the high risks and costs associated with developing a new technology.”