Post 24 in a series. When Green Turns Brown is an examination of a small town’s digester-energy project, in which Whitewater, Wisconsin would import other cities’ waste, claiming that the result would be both profitable and green.
Here’s a post that’s mostly an aside, a quick consideration of the notion of misinformation.
One should be clear: the history of a project isn’t ‘misinformation.’
At the 7.21.15 City of Whitewater Strategic Planning Session, a member of Council expressed concern about misinformation concerning the wastewater plant project. He remarked that sometimes
people fill in the gap with stuff that isn’t true or isn’t current information. The wastewater treatment plant is a good example. You know, talking about Trane. Okay, it’s no longer part of that project, but we haven’t done a good job of letting that be known.
See, 7.21.15 Council Session, https://vimeo.com/134219394.
I don’t know what other people are writing or saying about Trane’s role in the treatment plant project, but it has been a part of my When Green Turns Brown Series.
It’s part of that series because the series is about the full measure of a digester-energy project, its history, development, and implications.
The role of Trane is both relevant and material to the project. (If it were otherwise, then Trane never should have been involved, and Whitewater’s city government is remiss for voting at any stage to compensate that vendor.)
The epidemiology of influenza, for example, would reasonably include a history of prior outbreaks. One wouldn’t say that, because those outbreaks were in the past, they were beyond consideration or, so to speak, “no longer part of that project.” (In fact, the connections are even stronger in this case: Trane’s participation was part of the same course of events, the same outbreak, so to speak.)
This series is not written for a specifically local audience, let alone Whitewater’s Common Council. No one owes Whitewater’s politicians their narrative, their efforts to direct the discussion from what they consider done to what they consider ongoing.
The series is a mere prelude to both a written and video assessment of a digester-energy project; it’s only begun, and will take well over another year to complete (perhaps more, I’m not certain). These are notes – as I have made plain – along the way toward a work for a wider audience.
I’ll be writing about this project without a timetable constrained by political votes or expectations, local or otherwise.
In any event, writing about the actual advancement of this project is not ‘misinformation.’
I’d happily discuss this series with anyone, but I’ll not limit a careful, methodical consideration of this digester-energy project, by omitting significant events in its development.
Next Time: “Estimates of Future Flows and Loadings,” showing again how this project is, fundamentally and not incidentally, about the importation of other cities’ unwanted waste into Whitewater.
WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.