Gary Ruff, Jr. – 9/13/12

This page was last updated on September 13, 2012.

Vultures are coming; Gary Ruff, Jr.; Beaver County Times; September 13, 2012.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Beaver County, I’ve seen a great part of our country, and I have news for you. Don’t just take it from me, go to the web. We are about to experience a massive change.

“In Potter Township, a new ethane cracker plant of unbelievably mammoth size will be built. A frenzy on housing prices will ensue. Be ware [sic] of predatory realtors seeking to trick you. It happened in the eastern part of the state. Rentals being jacked up three times the normal price. People on low income now homeless. All to make way for high-paying workers, and a massive amount of them, for five years.”

[RWC] “unbelievably mammoth size?” At 300 acres, the Horsehead property is less than half the size of the former Aliquippa Works of J&L.

“This is not a joke. This plant will change Beaver County forever, good and bad. Be prepared, the vultures are coming to your door.”

[RWC] Oh no, how can we stop this?

When talk started about this project in early 2012, I posted the following tongue-in-cheek piece on the Facebook version of The Bird’s Eye View. At that time, the talk was about using land on the old J&L-Aliquippa site, hence the references to Aliquippa.

“This needs to be nipped in the bud. The plant would poison our air and water, make manmade global warming worse, and add traffic on our roads/rivers. Inevitably, billions of cubic feet of ethane and ethylene would escape during transport and kill untold numbers of us. And let’s not forget all the damage caused by extracting the gas from the Marcellus formation to feed the plant. The plant would likely be a big electricity consumer. Since most of that electricity would likely come from coal-fired and nuclear power plants, that’s even more pollution and could trigger a Japanese-style meltdown at the Beaver Valley Power Station. And what about the products made from the ethylene? I’m sure those products won’t be biodegradable and will be stuck in our ecosystem for millions of years, but only after most of our wildlife dies from getting entwined in the litter and/or ingesting the discarded products. Are we that greedy that we would risk the health of our children, the elderly, and our wildlife just for a couple of jobs? Heck, I’m sure the reason Sen. Casey is so gung ho on the project is that he lives about 250 miles away in northeast Pennsylvania and wouldn’t have to endure all the hardship the facility would surely bring. Even worse, if we’re not careful we could add jobs; students in our schools; economic activity in other businesses/industries; business travel through our airports; broaden our state and local tax bases which could lower tax rates; cut the number of people on food stamps, welfare, unemployment compensation; et cetera. The economic, environmental, and health consequences of this plant on Beaver County will be beyond our wildest imagination if we don’t act immediately.

“If Shell or anyone else wants to build something here, we need to demand the plant be nonprofit; build windmills; employ only Beaver County natives; employ at least twice as many people as required; compensate those employees far more than the economic value of their jobs; do neither outsourcing nor offshoring; buy all goods and services only from Beaver County businesses that produce their products in Beaver County, are nonprofit, employ only Beaver County natives, and compensate those employees far more than the economic value of their jobs; be able to withstand major earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and tornadoes with zero damage; and pay sufficient property taxes to allow the elimination of county and school district residential property taxes. If those measures don’t kill the project, we’ll need to take more drastic action via taxes and regulations at the commonwealth level. We need to stop this madness now!

“Oh, and what about the proposed location? Look at the demographics and you’ll find the real reason has nothing to do with suitability of the Aliquippa site vs. places like Beaver, just like when Beaver wouldn’t tolerate the ‘new’ jail. According to the 2010 census, Beaver’s population is only 4% nonwhite while Aliquippa’s population is 42% nonwhite. It’s fairly clear Aliquippa is the preferred site not because of things like utilities and transportation accessibility, but because of racism and poverty relative to rich, white locations.”