The Sunday Herald article about new technology at the Edmonds Waste Water Treatment Plant left me disappointed and infuriated (“Edmonds launches technology to destroy PFAS,” The Herald, April 19).
I testified against this project when the Edmonds City Council approved it. I based my testimony on conversations with the treatment plant staff, who had grave concerns about the project’s feasibility. They feared for their safety laboring in a super heated environment created by gasification’s high temperatures, and in the extremely restricted spaces created by shoe-horning equipment into the treatment plant’s existing footprint.
Even greater risks of gasification include catastrophic failure, explosions, fires and deaths. In 2017, a treatment plant worker in the United Kingdom died of serious burns after a gasification-plant fire. Six weeks later an explosion at another U.K. gasification plant seriously injured two workers.
Sadly, Edmonds bypassed the less expensive option of upgrading its incinerator because the council relied on information from egotistical managers promoting a shiny new project with novel technology. Dig deeper. Edmonds and other cities sending waste here will pay forever if gasification never works, or worse, fails in a catastrophic explosion.
Liz Brown
Edmonds
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