Post 31 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.
A review of this digester-energy project, one that involves waste-importation and an emphasis on supposed revenue-generation, is more than an examination of a vendor’s work, or city officials’ presentations. If it were only that narrow examination, then Messrs. Clapper & Reel (and the business lobbyists behind this project) would be able to constrict the truth of a project to a few PowerPoint presentations. The actual nature of something is not so easily, so narrowly, constrained.
Still, the centerpiece of proponents’ digester-energy project is – by officials’ own account – Technical Memo 4, from the Donohue firm. It’s fair to post that memo, initially on its own, with no additional questions.
In the weeks ahead, I’ll consider this written keystone and the presentations meant to support it. That will still be only a preliminary consideration of the project (as the project involves fiscal, economic, environmental, health, and business culture considerations that Whitewater officials have not addressed). This series will be lengthy because I will address those aspects of the project, and produce a written and video work thereafter.
Still, it’s fair and useful to begin with the memo. An assessment of it will follow in the weeks ahead.
See, below, Technical Memorandum 4 Digestion Complex and Energy Production —
So here we are. Take as long as you want since the people pushing this are only reading from a script. Also, everybody gets what “business lobby” in Whitewater means. It’s the little version of a Koch Brothers operation running around town talking about “development”.
How long until the town’s name gets changed to WASTEwater??? Totally stupid plan that fools no one.