This time, however, the League has some legitimacy in its request. The League is simply asking that all violations and enforcement actions against Fibrominn, a similar plant owned and operated by Fibrowatt in Minnesota, be made public.
That is a reasonable request.
The League, and other opposition in the region, have recently crawled out of the woodwork lobbing all sorts of allegations at Fibrowatt and Surry County officials.
Fibrowatt hopes to build two plants in North Carolina, one near the Yadkin River in Surry County. The plants would burn chicken litter and other biomass to generate electricity, a process company officials tout as environmentally friendly and renewable.
Opponents have, in recent months, begun to rail against the proposed development at every public opportunity, while rarely showing up at informational meetings to ask relevant, meaningful questions of company and county officials.
In short, they often seem to have made up their mind with or without a factual basis for their beliefs.
However, the group’s most recent request — that the Fibrominn track record in Minnesota be made public — is a good one and should be honored. The problem is, for some reason beyond logic, those findings are shielded by state law in Minnesota.
The League said recently that North Carolina officials had received those records, but had promised to keep them private.
We want to be clear. We have supported the Fibrowatt proposal since its beginning. We believe it is a good, renewable source of energy and a plant in Surry County will provided much needed jobs.
However, making the record of its Minnesota plant public, regarding any violations and enforcement actions against Fibrominn, should be done. If the plant’s record there is relatively clean, then it has even more evidence the proposed development in Surry County is right for this community.
A refusal to make these records public might give the community a reason to listen a little closer to the voice of opposition to the plant.
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