A Denver developer has confused two local studies on hazardous waste incineration and wrongly claimed support from the League of Women Voters of Grand County for a facility proposed at Cisco, according to League President Mary Plumb.
Plumb said Saturday that, as related by several people who called her, Dean Norris, president of CoWest Incineration Corp., said during a debate last month at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colo., that the "head of the League of Women Voters has prepared a study" on the Cisco incinerator "and has concluded that the incinerator would not cause any problems."She said league members in Colorado were upset by the assertion and called her.
"We wrote a letter . . . to set the record straight. We asked Dean Norris not to make any more statements of this nature," Plumb said. "The League of Women Voters has no position on this issue, and our study does not draw any conclusions," Plumb wrote.
Norris has yet to respond to the letter, dated Sept. 30.
Cynthia Smith, league vice president, said the organization initially asked the County Commission for help soon after deciding last February to conduct a study. But the league later changed its mind and appealed instead for private donations to cover expenses for its study, released Saturday.
Later the County Commission approved $5,000 for a separate study by Janie Walker, a county Planning and Zoning commissioner and district health board member, and Georgia Hamblin, chairman of the Southeastern Utah District Health Dept. Hamblin is also an officer of the Grand County League of Women Voters.
Hamblin reported in August that she believed the technology exists to build a safe incinerator but she had "concerns" about the background of CoWest and Catalyst Waste-to-Energy Corp., a joint partner in the Cisco project.