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Comment 16 for Comments for the LCFS Method 2A2B applications (lcfs2a2bcomments-ws) - 3rd Workshop.
First Name: Sydney
Last Name: Bacchus
Email Address: appliedenvirserve@gmail.com
Affiliation:
Subject: Public Comments for Application 71 for pathways for the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS)
Comment:
My comments are provided as "Public Comments" for application 71 for pathways for the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), from the following link: http://www.arb.ca.gov/fuels/lcfs/2a2b/2a-2b-com.htm My comments identify actual or methodological errors in Western Plains Energy's renewable diesel (RD) produced by growing corn and sorghum in Kansas to convert to ethanol. Application 71: Application 71 is by Western Plains Energy to grow corn and sorghum in Kansas to convert to ethanol. Both are agricultural crops that divert farmland critical from growing food for Americans at a time when the US position is that current food production is inadequate to meet future needs. Corn is one of the most irrigated crops grown in the US. It is common knowledge that US aquifers and surface waters, particularly those used for industrial agriculture, have been depleted to the point where future agricultural production for food is in jeopardy. Corn also is one of the most heavily fertilized crops grown in the US. A prime ingredient of the fertilizer used for most of the agricultural crops in the US is phosphate rock that is mined in Florida. This mining process is highly energy intensive, consuming massive quantities of petroleum-based diesel fuel and producing deadly concentrations of particulates from a combination of the diesel fuel and mining dust that leaves surrounding rural areas resembling the dust-bowl era of decades past. Phosphate mining also requires hundreds of millions of gallons of water per day for the processing of the mined rock. Additional the mining process leaves huge gaping mine pits, hundreds of acres in size, in the surficial aquifer that results in continual dewatering of the regional aquifer system via evaporation from the mine pits. Please refer to the comments of rural residents subjected to the clouds of particulate air pollution and dewatering of their property from this mining (e.g., Norma Killebrew) and my comments in the US Army Corps of Engineers' Areawide Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for continued phosphate mining in central Florida for more details on the air quality contamination and irreversible dewatering of the aquifer system that results from the mining to produce fertilizer for crops such as the corn and sorghum proposed for ethanol in this application. This application did NOT include or address these air quality or irreversible water resource depletions for fertilizing, irrigating or fueling farm equipment to produce the corn or sorghum. Therefore, this source of fuel canNOT be considered renewable or a source that would reduce air quality contaminants. Application 71 should be denied. Sydney Bacchus, Ph.D.
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Date and Time Comment Was Submitted: 2014-01-31 19:47:35
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