Impact of AES plant

Applause is in order for Tom Hennessey’s column of Feb. 3. I don’t live in the town of Bucksport and probably should not be the least bit concerned about the recent developments regarding the AES plan proposed there, but I’ll throw my thoughts out anyway.

Once completed, this plant expects to burn 1,500 tons of coal a day. That’s 3 million pounds of fossil fuel that is dug out of the ground in Pennsylvania, transported up the coast, into the Penobscot River and then up a smoke stack at AES in Bucksport. Assuming the plant burns this amount of coal every day, in one year, alone, that is more than a billion pounds of coal. The residue from the AES plant either goes up the smoke stack and spews out over the Bucksport area and other Down East communities or the remaining residue ash must be buried somewhere within fairly close proximity ot the plant. This state already is having problems with the tons of ash from PERC and MERC, now AES is going to add more….

Fortunately, from where I live, the prevailing winds will carry the smoke and ash toward Bucksport, Castine, the Blue Hill area and not in my direction. I don’t eat the fish from the river, so the Atlantic salmon, alewives, smelt, striped bass and the blue fish will not end up on our dinner table. The ducks, eagles, hawks, owls and other birds will find a way around the many barges traveling up and down the river loaded with coal and will in time learn to avoid the huge smoke stacks.

The tons of ash emited into the atmosphere will go somewhere else and will not land on my fields and trees. The trucks required to remove the residue will travel an already crowded Route 15, but thankfuly not by my house.

The environmental impact will take years to take effect and probably will never affect me here in Dixmont. I hope, however, the residents in Bucksport and the surrounding communities are ready to face those consequences years from now. AES is determined to build that plant there and once it is completed there will be no turning back. I hope that years from now we never hear the phrase, “I told you so.” Ben Brown Dixmont