Muscatine

Yes go if you can.

I’m not sure either what you should say or what they will allow you to say but I will give you a few suggestions.

I would stick mostly to your first hand experiences with it.

Make sure you talk about how it affects you personally, the dirty car, dirty house, dirty windows, extra health expenses and whatever else you can think of, and their costs to you.

Then put it in a community perspective. For instance if it costs you another $100 per year to clean, which I guess is low, multiply that number by 10,000 households to get a cost of $1,000,000 per year that GPC doesn’t pay for but puts that burden on you and the rest of us.

Stink doesn’t seem to be regulated and it’s hard to put a price on it, but I would certainly mention how it prevents you, your family and the rest of us from enjoying the outdoors and even in our homes on bad days.

You might throw in that it affects Muscatine not only as you’ve mentioned and as preventing industrial expansion, but also affects recruiting people to work in Muscatine. Given the choice of doing the same job in Iowa City or Davenport or Muscatine, most people would choose one of the other cities. It’s not for lack of amenities, the tax structure, the schools or a host of other things but simply for lack of clean air.

Be bold.

Good luck.

I got some professional advice which I've edited slightly.   It's in the public domain so BS and the boys can leave all the blather about plagiarism alone.

(1)    GPC has a history of violations. You might want to say that you think the referral to the Attorney General’s office is warranted in your view (if that’s what you think), because the history of violations suggests a lax attitude about air quality permitting and standards. Therefore the stiffer penalties that the AG’s office can impose are needed as an “incentive.”

(2)    Given what else has been reported about the violations concerning wastewater treatment, these only support the conclusion that there is a lack of responsiveness in GPC’s corporate culture toward the well-being of the community and the cleanliness of the environment.   We've had to live with this foul air for 50 years already.   It's long past time to stop it.

(3)    Encourage the Commission to make the referral at this meeting and not delay it. Muscatine needs to be a cleaner city, a city with a reputation for cleanliness and healthy conditions, not the opposite.

Hope this might help.   You have a three minute limit.   Arrive by 10:am to fill out a form.   If you want to submit written comments there is an e-mail address.

Does GPC stink? Yes it does.  Do they pollute?  Yep, sure do.  Not sure that there's much you can do about it.  It's the nature of their business.  The milling and cooking of grain emits a foul stench.  It's the same in Cedar Rapids near the ADM plant and also in Clinton at the former Clinton Corn, now ADM.  

It is a big reason that the area surrounding GPC has always been a blighted neighborhood.  Anyone with the means to do so moves away from there.  The whole place is an eyesore.  Many of the ramshackle and dilapidated houses should be torn down.  Maybe that's the solution because, let's face it, the criticle area is roughly southeast of the tracks to Oregon street.  Perhaps GPC could buy the properties and run a bulldozer through there.  That alone would beautify Muscatine.

One more observation.  People have always complained about Kent/GPC, but until the last couple years or so it's been sort of a low grumble.  Now it's growing louder.  Why?  Because GPC used to be one hell of a good place to work and we put up with the foul air.  No more.