“A rose is a rose is a rose.” Maybe so. But if it acts like a skunk and smells like a skunk you can be pretty sure it’s not a rose. It’s really a skunk.
Ten years ago Fibrowatt hired a professional lobbying firm, Goff & Howard, to lobby both federal and state governments in their behalf. Fibrowatt wanted favorable laws and agency approvals so they could build incinerators to burn manure and sell electric power. There’s profit to be made doing that.
Goff & Howard developed key messages, framed around the themes of “benefits” and “renewable energy.” They prepare the wording and timing of press releases, do community relations work, arrange plant tours, manage persuasion and lead people to believe that it’s simply a done deal, as they strive to assure their client’s objectives.
This is according to Goff & Howard’s own quarterly newsletter INSIGHT, June, 2008. This issue may be found on the Internet. To quote from INSIGHT: “Over many years, we have provided Fibrowatt with nearly every service we have to offer.”
So don’t let Fibrowatt’s rosy talk mislead you. What they say, what you read in the papers, has been professionally managed and skillfully polished. But what they want to do our narrow roads each day and build a big nasty polluting incinerator to burn it in. Our county commissioners have said that Fibrowatt passes the “sniff test.” The commissioners must have been influenced with roses.
It won’t be roses coming out of that 300 foot smoke stack. Do you want to breathe the gasses that come from burning chicken manure? You will, along with our school children and old folks, if that incinerator is built.
The whole thing smells like skunk to me.
Tom Lux
State Road
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