This website is a collaborative effort by a group of informed and educated moms concerned for the health of our children, the safety of our environment and the success of our great city of Petaluma.
We believe that the health of our children will be at risk if this asphalt plant is allowed to be built and operate at Haystack Landing.
There are inconsistencies, legal errors, inadequacies, scientific errors and out of date research misleading the public into a false sense of safety and security.
The proposed Dutra Asphalt Plant at Haystack Landing must be relocated to a safer environment away from our homes, schools, wetlands and businesses.
If you could prevent a child from getting asthma, bronchitis, developmental delays or cancer, would you? Air quality must be preserved especially when adequate asphalt supply exists. We do not need to jeopardize our City's air quality unnecessarily.
Thousands of children visit Shollenberger Park (a few hundred feet from the proposed project location) every year and 900 a year visit for school field trips. Poor air quality and excessive noise will affect these children and possibly this educational program.
AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION WINS CASE SEEKING STRONGER PARTICULATE POLLUTION STANDARDS (See full article here):
February 24, 2009. A federal appeals court today ruled that Bush-era clean air standards were deficient, sending them back to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for corrective action.
The Bush administration had rejected recommendations by its science advisors for stronger airborne particulate standards, and the Court today ruled that this action was arbitrary. The standards at issue limit levels of soot, smoke, and other airborne particles linked to tens of thousands of premature deaths each year.
“This is a huge victory for anyone who breathes,” said Earthjustice attorney Paul Cort. “Particulate matter is one of the most deadly forms of pollution out there today. The Bush EPA refused to follow the advice of leading health advocates as well as its own scientists who argued that a stronger standard was needed to protect public health. Today’s ruling corrects that injustice.”
Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, filed the suit on behalf of the American Lung Association, Environmental Defense Fund, and National Parks Conservation Association. A number of states also challenged the standards.
This asphalt plant will increase the criteria pollutants, PM2.5, NxO, SO2, and ozone. The concept that there is a threshold below which levels of these pollutants have no significant health affect has been supplanted by the results of many studies in the last ten years which show that the relationship between concentrations of the criteria pollutants and their health affects is linear, i.e. there is no "safe" level of these air pollutants.
Please take a few moments to negotiate through our website.
Educate yourself and you will see why Haystack Landing
is not a safe place for an asphalt plant.
Video: Alan Pendley, Consulting Chemist - Impact of carcinogens on the environment and our health. Asphalt fumes and diesel fumes are some of the most carcinogenic out there! It will not only affect the park but the Sheraton, housing areas, and businesses in the area.
The Region's needs would still be met for asphalt production and recycling without the proposed project. The Environmental Impact Report states that the three asphalt plants in Sonoma and Marin Counties can produce and recycle enough asphalt for our county. IN FACT, none of these asphalt plants are producing their permitted limits or meeting anywhere near their plant capacity. (Read the entire quote from the FEIR here!)
Fugitive Emissions are dangerous and hard to test-science is just now learning how dangerous they are. Can Fugitive Emissions be Contained? By definition they can not. (Learn more here).
The Petaluma City Council unanimously opposes this project. (Learn more here).
The Dutra Group has a history of poor business practices-don't be fooled by false promises.(Learn more here).
Tell the Truth finds Dutra Website contains misleading statement-Tell the Truth is an organization that tracks public policy debates in an effort to ensure the public is getting accurate and truthful information. Tell the Truth recently investigated the debate around the Haystack Landing Project. Tell the Truth concluded Dutra may be misleading the public on their website stating: "The Dutra asphalt plant would not create 1,000 jobs. According to the EIR for the project 'the proposed project would not directly induce substantial population growth in the area because it would employ only ten individuals'. The statement found on the Dutra website is potentially misleading to the public. With complex issues such as the Dutra debate, one must be careful to look at information in context and not merely rely on "sound bites." See letter here.
Thank you Sebastopol City Council, City of Santa Rosa, City of Healdsburg, City of Cloverdale and the City of Sonoma for your support!
