Re: Petaluma Tragedy

On Fri, 03 Feb 2006 12:09:14 -0800, Dan Abel <dabel@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Read in the paper this morning that the Petaluma Mushroom Farm is giving
up. They were victims of NIMBY. The neighbors didn't like the smell.
The business was there 28 years. I wonder how long these neighbors were
there? Maybe they shouldn't have bought there? Mushrooms are made with
compost. Compost is made out of ***. *** stinks.

A hundred employees, an US$8 million a year business.

http://petmushroom.org/docs/sun062602.html

After reading the article, I'm not particularly sympathetic to their
situation. First, it looks like the company has been there since
1973, but not at that size. What was once acceptable at a particular
location, may be a problem when magnified.

The area is zoned rural/residential, not commercial so people do have
a reasonable expectation to buy habitable property. Plus, the people
who owned the surrounding properties over the past couple of decades
before the facility mushroomed, so to speak, shouldn't have to have
their property values plummet because the mushroom farm has grown into
big agribusiness. Yes, the area is rural and there are smells to be
expected, but a composting facility is a processing plant not a farm.

Second, it's not like this company has been good citizens. Illegally
discharging pesticide-contaminated wastewater into the environment,
gross violations of building regulations, and employing more people
than the county approved, presumably to avoid tax repercussions....

Finally, this smell is essentially air pollution, why not look for a
technological solution?

Perhaps as the neighbors' complaints grew over the years, they should
have been donating some of that annual $8 million to a local
engineering school for research into technology to reduce the smell of
their operation rather than trying to bulldoze their way to a permit.
They might have even ended up with a patent, if not placated
neighbors.

Or move to an industrial area where they belong. :)
Sue(tm)
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!
.

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