Norm, compared to all the rest of your extensive reports over the months (and years), you have outdone yourself again.
It is crystal clear to me that this DHEC is not interested in a good faith, honorable effort to permit the plant to operate, but has been deliberately stalling in an attempt to drive it out of business. I think the state of SC and the people who run this DHEC richly deserved to be sued for every penny the partnership has lost in opportunity plus costs and we stockholders of GRNO have also suffered damages because of the loss of a properly operating plant. I don't know what DHEC's problem is and I don't care. If they worked in private enterprise, they would have been fired for malfeasance long ago, at least at the places I've worked.
As I've said repeatedly now, when is an application not an application? When it isn't complete. These characters will keep stalling until they are stopped or we are all dead broke or just plain dead.
Does every little dry cleaning plant go through this procedure to get a permit to operate? Clearly they don't or there wouldn't be any dry cleaners in SC. Just because this is an oil refinery or a "chemical manufacturer" is no excuse to claim that its tiny size doesn't matter.
Brown stated that, assuming no adverse commentary (as was the case last year), the permit can still be issued by sometime in July.
Of course there will be adverse commentary and it will continue to come from its sole source, DHEC.
GRNO believes that DHEC advised them not to apply until the initial construction permit was awarded, so that the application could take into account any conditions and determinations in that permit. Robert Brown, the principal engineer at DHEC Bureau of Air Quality dealing with the GRNO applications, stated that he did not know why GRNO did not apply for the enhanced operating level in the first application. GRNO states that they were advised to abide strictly by the terms of the court order overturning DHEC's initial denial of the permit to operate at the Mt. Pleasant location, so that there would be no retext for further delays, revisions, and tests.
It doesn't sound like GRNO has the documentation to back this claim. The whole idea of not applying at the proper level never made sense to me. It would make sense, based on the continuous conflict with DHEC over all these years, to get everything they contend in writing. But getting anything in writing from DHEC seems to be one of GRNO's major problems.
5) Sometime in January, DHEC internally determined that their policy will be that subsection NNN standards do apply, but that this is not a cut-and-dried case and that final determination should be made by the regional EPA authority .
So the preapplication meetings process, which started in mid October, took until sometime in January for DHEC to decide that this NNN actually does apply.
GRNO believes that because DHEC is deferring the decision to the EPA that they have a legal responsibility to initiate promptly a request for determination. DHEC believes that they have no obligation nor need to write EPA until they have a formal application to consider (since everything is hypothetical until that point). It is not clear to me whether DHEC has ever formally rejected GRNO's position in the letter of November 25, but everyone knows DHEC's position.
Hence the stalling of even accepting GRNO's repeated attempts to apply. As long as "GRNO has not applied", DHEC will refuse to present their case to the EPA. GRNO/RS may claim they have applied, but DHEC can continue to invent questions and/or requests for more inputs.
6) Sometime between the end of January and early March, RS wrote formally to the EPA regional authority asking for a determination in this matter and submitting their arguments. Both RS and DHEC informally discussed issues with EPA authorities. As of this morning, DHEC has not sent any formal request to the EPA for a determination, nor have they responded to what is at least an informal request from EPA to provide their opinion and reasons for EPA consideration. Brown promised me that this letter would be sent by the end of this week. RS states that he has been making the same promise every week for the last 10 weeks. The EPA cannot make a final determination without input from their local agency.
I'm sorry, but this is a load of ( ). We LPs are sitting with this thing and these clowns refuse to do what they must do and the EPA won't supercede them. What a crock of ... hypocrisy.
(DHEC apparently took several months to decide that the sections dealing with oil refining did not apply, since the source material was not crude oil). RS believes that by context and intent the chemical manufacturing sections of the law apply to distinctly different types of operations, none of which are close to what this processor actually
does.
Nobody is stupid enough to try to justify DHEC's position and I believe that in itself justifies my contention of malfeasance. The continual dreamed up excuses for further delays further confirm my contention.
GRNO is still operating under the original construction permit, which is valid for about another 6 months).
Hold on. Why is this so called construction permit only good for 6 months? Think about that.
Operating permits are good for 5 years.
Look at that! We have to go through this whole ordeal again in 5 years!!!!! It will take 5 years to get this process to move because the individuals involved have to be dislodged from their jobs somehow.
Actual testing and modeling put the processor at an average of 99.6%. However, the lower standards will unquestionably speed up the process of approval elsewhere, since 99+% efficiency on a 90% standard is not likely to trigger tests, hearings, etc., elsewhere.
That depends entirely on the bureaucrats involved.
D) If NNN standards _clearly_ do not apply, then GRNO believes it would have a basis for seeking an injunction and damages, based on apparent violation of the previous court order, which effectively enjoined DHEC from making decisions other than upon the law and the facts of the case. In that case, one of the DHEC administrators admitted under oath that he had never read the environmental law that he was charged with enforcing, prior to the denial of GRNO's application. This individual is now Robert Brown's supervisor. (snip) I can understand why DHEC may prefer not to communicate with the EPA at all, if they think they can persuade RS and GRNO to agree to accept NNN standards. GRNO believes that further DHEC delays will simply strengthen GRNO's case.
It sounds to me that DHEC figures they have nothing left to lose at this point. Stalling seems to work well for them.
RS believes that Brown's supervisor has openly expressed hostility to GRNO as a company. RS also believes that, for both political and structural reasons that extend throughout the agency, there is a tendency for DHEC employees to respond negatively to any apparent pressure coming from outside the agency, and that the best way to secure cooperation lies in prompt, thorough, and continual face-to-face meetings in which documents can be discussed and decisions facilitated.
In other words, RS believes the legal and political system cowers in abject terror before this DHEC monster. And our entire investment sits dead in the water while all these bureaucrats, including the impotent EPA, figuratively sit and stare at each other. The latest news release didn't quite make that clear to me.
GRNO is not RS's only client. RS makes its living by getting along with DHEC. Meanwhile we are being destroyed.
Charles |
