Almost visible from any part of the county, there is a smoke stack with white smoke fumming out of the top. Steam. It is just steam what the plant officials said 5 years ago when making their presentation to the county. “We will help this county with their job problem” on Fibrowatt official had said. The poultry farmers are estactic because in the back of their minds, the will be able to make money off their litter. They no longer will have to cleanout the poultry houses themselves. Fibrowatt said they will take care of that. Fibrowatt is Page County’s answer to bringing in jobs to Page County the EDA claimed. Bringing in jobs is what it had done…..
The drive from Luray to Stanley now takes about 45 minutes on 340 because of the trucks coming and going out of the Fibrowatt site. Thats on a good day. About twice a month there is an accident involving a litter truck and a car, where the litter truck has to swing wide to get out onto 340. There has only been 2 fatalities in 5 years. The back roads aren’t as fast either because they have truck traffic as well. Dr. Dale reports another case of a Dioxin Cancer, 5th one this year, 3rd one from the technical center, and its only May.The 20 people who had been diagnosed with this cancer in the past 3 years live in a 5 mile radius of the plant. Fibrowatt still maintains it has nothing to do with it and the EPA says they are borderline with the permit.
The data center that PTS built finally has said they want to move because their employees cannot stand the smell of the plant and the paint on their cars are peeling, even on the David Tong’s 2015 Shelby Mustang. After the Fibrowatt plant was built, any businesses that wanted to settle at Project Clover changed their mind after visiting the site. Cardman says he is still under non-discloser of those companies, but the NVDailey online edition had already printed their names. The home owners are still fighting the tax increase on their homes because the property values have dropped and the county increased the taxes to cover the offset. Taxes per year is approaching 1/4 of the home value.
Cattle production for beef has declined 2% in the past 2 years because of some type of contamination. The farmers are asking the county to cap Fibrowatt sale on the ash and the poultry farmers are petitioning Fibrowatt to pay more for the litter. The Inland Gaming and Fisheries has refused to restock our streams for fishing because the last time they did, all but a few had died. They said Page County needs to clean up their streams.The town of Stanley has just finished the upgrades to their sewar system, so Fibrowatt excess waste will not flood the field and streams anymore.
The jobless rate had dropped to 7%. Not because of Fibrowatt, because a group of citizens had gathered and started to undermine the EDA and went to all kinds of businesses and asked them to settle here. The attraction was Walmart. Now 211 is starting to look like the intersection at 522 and I66 in front Royal. Tourism suprisingly dropped only 1% over the past 4 years. Because from the Drive, at Stoneyman Overlook, the Valley floor looks like Los Angeles. The EDA for some reason is still crying we need broadband while the homes in Jewel Hollow are enjoying their 60/mbps download speed from the Verizon 6g network.
February 27th, 2010
Keith
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