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Could have, but didn't
ATTACHED MEDIA FILES
Slots hearing
Look how many trials there were and articles!!!!
http://www.erietube.com/_Tires-to-energy-plant/video/267902/3766.htmlTires with energy plant;
State Rep. Florindo Fabrizio, left, and state Sen. Jane Earll listen to speakers during the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board hearing in Erie Friday. (Rob Engelhardt / Erie Times-News)
(see picture at site link)
Greg Rubino in Google Images (pictures): (If the link doesn't work Google
Greg Rubino+Erie
http://images.google.com/images?q=Greg+Rubino%2BErie&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1T4TSHB_enUS289US290&sa=2 Rubino Companies:
www.erierenewableenergy.com/(Tire burning for energy)
Greg Rubino and Caletta Renewable Energy introduce our business and highlight important areas on our site. As more information becomes available, we will post it here for your review.
The disposition of tires is a significant problem in Pennsylvania. Although substantial progress has been made in recent years by PaDEP in dealing with the steady accumulation of tire piles across the Commonwealth, Pennsylvania and surrounding states continue to generate and accumulate millions of scrap tires each year. Some of these tires are recycled in various ways, but tire accumulation continues to pose a threat to public safety and public health. In fact, discarded tires are a main breeding ground for mosquitoes which potentially carry West Nile virus.
Developing new uses for waste tires, like the ERE Plant, are critical for the success of the initiative to reduce and eliminate these piles. As a much better alternative to stockpiling or land-filling waste tires, the ERE Plant will convert tires into renewable energy with the low emissions characteristic of a circulating fluidized bed system. The reduction in greenhouse gases produced will be in excess of 300 cubic meters of total gases per ton of tires consumed as fuel, with all of the methane and all but 24 cubic meters of the CO2 eliminated.
If you are a large power user and employer in the Erie area and wish to purchase power from ERE, please contact us with your requirements. We will have our power experts respond to your inquiry.
www.erierenewableenergy.com/about-us/ Greg Rubino Welcomes you to Erie Renewable Energy
Erie Renewable Energy was formed in 2006 as a joint venture of Conservation Development Associates, LLC ("CDA") from Erie, Pennsylvania and Caletta Renewable Energy, LLC ("Caletta") from Boston, Massachusetts.
Caletta is involved with multiple energy-generation projects using waste materials that would othwerwise be disposed of in landfills. This true recycling of waste materials allows Caletta to achieve its twin goals of generating renewable, sustainable power and reducing disposal of waste in landfills. This coupled approach means Caletta is producing much-needed electric power for consumers while simultaneously eliminating the environmental burdens created by landfilling materials which can be safely used to produce power.
CDA was formed by family interests of Greg Rubino, an Erie-based developer, and Owen McCormick of Joseph McCormick Construction of Erie. Greg and Owen are committed to maintaining local ownership and participation in the power plant to ensure local vendors, local workers and local businesses enjoy the full benefit of recycling waste tires into a sustainable source of electric power.
Our Business Philosophy
Recycle waste into energy.
Employ the best available technology to maintain the highest environmental standards.
Focus on local economic development goals of new jobs and investment.
Our Consultants
ERE has assembled an excellent team of consultants to help design the power plant. This team has an unsurpased track record of environmentally-sensitive economic devlopment. One of our team members is Bill Staph, Managing Principal of Atlantic Environmental, Inc. Atlantic handled the environmental permitting and construcion at the recently-completed Presque Isle Downs, where Atlantic implemented state-of-the art wetland systems and established a 62-acre preserve on the banks of Walnut Creek.
Each month, we will feature a different member of our team of consultants.
www.passport-companies.com/ Greg Rubino Welcomes You to Passport Companies in Erie Pa
Greg Rubino is owner and operator of Passport Companies. Each of the companies plays a focused role in our main goal, which is to take our clients from where they are today to where they want to be tomorrow. Passport Companies offer our clients an a la carte menu of a comprehensive range of products and services including:
Commercial Property Sales & Leasing
Investment Properties
Property Development and Management
Zoning Issues
We have numerous flexible programs for every type of commercial real estate. We also have an extensive grouping of affiliated resources in the environmental and permitting arenas.
We are poised to deliver these services in a streamlined, efficient and reliable manner for projects ranging from industrial expansions to retail store relocations. We are truly a “one-stop shop” for all of your real estate needs, and we can provide various real estate consulting services through our network of Passport Team Members. Click here to access the website for our latest project, Erie Renewable Energy
(There are several other branch links at site link)
Passport Development, LLC
This division deals with zoning, approvals, and other issues related to the development of property.
Passport Realty, LLC
This division handles commercial and investment real estate in the area.
Passport Management, LLC
This division handles the management of commercial and investment properties.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Passport Companies. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Site Map
Passport Companies
240 West 11th Street
Erie, PA 16501
Phone: (814) 454-1800
Fax: (814) 464-8930
Website:
http://www.passport-companies.com/© Passport Companies. All rights reserved.
FBI article for Rubino below, but
See "Ties to Erie" article mentions Greg Rubino
April 11, 2008
Tires-to-energy in Erie, PA
The Buffalo News recently ran an in depth article on a proposed tires-to-energy plant in Erie, Pennsylvania. The massive plant would generate 100 megawatts of electricity by burning 900 tons of waste tires every day.
This isn't what most of us think of when we advocate for alternative energy in the Great Lakes region, and a grass-roots organization has formed to fight the plant. Keep Erie’s Environment Protected, or KEEP, is "concerned about the pollutants that would be pumped into the air through its 300-foot smokestack."
There's always room for reasoned debate, and the article presents both sides. But I'd have to say Greg Rubino, one of the developers, probably did his cause no favor by trying to argue that Buffalo was not downwind from Erie.
_______________________________________________
STOPP is at
http://www.stopburningtires.com/ The anti-tire burning website/Environmentalists.
NEW KEEP HEADLINES:
Public Informational Meeting Thursday January, 29th at 7:00 PM. The meeting will be held at the Mount Calvary Gym on East Lake Road.
Fundraiser February 15 from 3 to 5 PM at the Sunset Inn.
How hard is it for tire plant supporters to understand: TIRE PLANT = POOR HEALTH - we don't want it, not here, not now, not ever!!!!
The Erie School District makes a stand - read the approved resolution from thier October 30th meeting.
Highlights from a presentation by Andy Glass - Director Erie County Board of Health - GET THE FACTS HERE!
Erie County Medical Society - "exceeding the present emissions of the worst polluting county industries combined"
The American Lung Association has released a statement in regards to the "tires to energy plant." Read all about their comments on the potential health impacts that it could bring.
RESOLUTION NUMBER 2008-02 from the Erie County Board of Health.
Watch these important videos and be informed:
Kenton Kovich sings the KEEP Message - Clean Air!
Hear Keep President Randy Barnes Speak From The Proposed Site.
Know the facts! View the KEEP PSA!
(Videos at Link)
http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051104/NEWS02/511040385Filippi to request out-of-town jury
Published: November 04. 2005 1:15AM
Erie Mayor Rick Filippi wants an out-of-town jury to decide his fate.Filippi's lead lawyer, Leonard Ambrose, said he will file a request today asking the judge to move Filippi's public-corruption trial to another county or have a jury from another county hear the case at the Erie County Courthouse.At the end of a hearing on the Filippi case on Thursday, attorney Leonard Ambrose told Judge Ernest J. DiSantis Jr. that extensive local media coverage would be the main reason for the request, known as change of venue or venire.Ambrose told DiSantis he will file the request today, the deadline for the defense to file pretrial motions in the Filippi case. DiSantis has scheduled a hearing on the pretrial motions for Nov. 29, but has not scheduled a trial date.The state Attorney General's Office, which is prosecuting Filippi and two co-defendants, will get a chance to respond to the defense's pretrial motions.
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Comments (24) In Rubino named in 6 FBI probes
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/go-erie/T1KKETS8PSC8I4152May 20, 2008
recently i read 50 pages of documents, then verified them, that rubino is an fbi informant in exchange for cocaine charges (dealing) that date back the last 20 years. it isn't a surprise his name keeps popping up in shady dealings.
Greg Rubino + Tecumseh Brown Eagle:
www.goerie.com/May 7, 2008
Erie Renewable Energy officials couldn't have picked a more receptive audience Tuesday when they talked about plans to build a $235 million scrap-tires-to-energy plant in east Erie.
About 40 union workers jammed the Erie Labor Temple hall at 1701 State St. to hear ERE officials restate their commitment to a union work force, and announce plans for a $1.5 million diversity program to recruit and train minority and urban workers to build and run the plant, to be called Port Erie Power.
"It's an all union job as far as we are concerned," ERE President Greg Rubino said, to the applause of union members.
Rubino said ERE's goal is to have 20 percent minority representation in the project work force. "That has never been done before" in the Erie region, Rubino said. "Nobody has ever had that kind of percentage of minority representation."
Rubino said ERE has signed agreements with the Great Lakes Building and Construction Trades Council, the Booker T. Washington Center of Erie and the Erie Indian Moundbuilders Tribal Nation, to set up a diversity recruitment and training program to prepare urban and minority workers for jobs in the construction and renewable-energy industries.
The program is expected to cost about $1.5 million and produce 75 to 100 trained workers.
"It's a step in the right direction. This is something new for the Erie economy," said Steve Johnson, a 44-year-old equipment operator who spent the past year working on the Sheraton Erie Bayfront Hotel and hopes to work on Port Erie Power.
Tecumseh Brown Eagle, chief and chairman of the Erie Indian Moundbuilders, said the program will seek to reach all minority groups -- black people, Native Americans, Latinos, women, immigrants and disabled workers.
He said the idea is also to promote diversity hiring among suppliers and companies that bid for work with the plant.
ERE officials said the 90 megawatt power plant they want to build would generate about 250 construction jobs, then create 60 permanent on-site jobs with an average salary of more than $50,000. They also expect the plant to create 140 to 150 spinoff jobs with vendors, equipment suppliers and service providers.
The idea is to get the Booker T. Washington Center and Erie Indian Moundbuilders to handle recruitment, beginning in January. The first graduates should be prepared to apply for union apprentice programs by July 2009. Construction of the plant is expected to begin sometime in 2010.
Shantel Hilliard, assistant director of the Booker T. Washington Center, acknowledged that the plant has been the focus of controversy among some residents and environmental activists. He said the center would not support something that would hurt local residents, and said he would rely on the state Department of Environmental Protection and federal Environmental Protection Agency to ensure the plant meets regulations.
"We feel this is a viable project and the DEP and EPA will give this project the amount of time and consideration it deserves," he said.
JIM CARROLL can be reached at (814) 724-1716, 870-1727 or by e-mail.
of
http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080507/NEWS02/805070361/0/lifestyles07
Tire-to-energy plant is a hot issue in ErieTire-to-energy plant is a hot issue in Erie
Sunday, August 10, 2008
By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Don HopeyMany residents of eastern Erie near the former International Paper Co. property where a $330 million tire incinerator/electric generation plant is proposed express their opposition to the plant.ERIE, Pa. -- Greg Rubino wants to build the biggest tire-burning plant in the world just a medium-deep fly ball from home plate of a boys and girls club softball field in a working-class East Side neighborhood.
Mr. Rubino is trying to sell the tire-to-energy facility as an environmentally based, economic development project that each day would use between 72,000 and 100,000 discarded tires -- a "virtual renewable source of fuel." It would produce 90 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 65,000 homes; its ash would be sent to a concrete-block manufacturer; and it would create 60 jobs.
"There's 330 million waste tires in the United States, and we need 10 percent of them. We can get those from just a couple-of-hundred-mile radius, delivered primarily by rail," said Mr. Rubino, a former car salesman who also was a real estate broker for Presque Isle Downs race track and casino in Erie. In 2006, he formed Erie Renewable Energy to develop the facility with Conservation Development Associates LLC of Erie and Boston-based Caletta Renewable Energy LLC.
"I'm proud of what I'm trying to do," he said last week, insisting that the facility won't burn or incinerate tires but rather would "combust tire-derived fuel, " another name for pulverized or chipped tires.
"Natural gas prices are up 33 percent and electric rates are going up soon. We need more energy, development and jobs."
But in the 18 months since Mr. Rubino proposed building the project on an overgrown log-storage lot along East Lake Road that International Paper closed in 2000, criticism has climbed as fast as its price tag, which has ballooned from $85 million to $350 million.
Opponents say the location, just 500 yards from the Lake Erie shore and much closer than that to an elementary school, a racially and ethnically mixed neighborhood, two public-housing projects, dozens of small businesses and the Dr. George J. D'Angelo Boys & Girls Club of Erie, is a bad place to build the facility.
The plant includes a "fluidized bed" combustion system, twin 150-foot-tall boilers, electric power generators, a 300-foot smokestack and inside storage space for hundreds of thousands of shredded tires. It would draw 1 million gallons of water a day from Lake Erie, most of which would be used in steam generation for its turbines, and produce 117 tons of ash a day.
"There are 33-34 businesses in an area within a mile of the site that together employ more than 1,000 and are opposed to the tire burning proposal," said Randy Barnes, president of Keep Erie's Environment Protected, a citizens group formed to oppose the project. "They're concerned about pollution and concerned about its effect on their employees and the area."
Mr. Barnes said the tire facility's air-pollution projections are not a good fit for a city that has successfully cleaned up Presque Isle Bay after a decades-long struggle, and where a commitment to tourism is evident in a lakefront redevelopment project that includes a $100 million convention center-hotel complex.
Bruce Kern II, president of C.A. Curtze Co., a wholesale food distributor with 310 employees at two locations within a block of the plant site, said he might move the 130-year-old company out of the city where it was founded if the tire-burning facility is built there.
"It would be a major polluter,'' said Mr. Kern, who has made his concerns known to the Erie City Council. "The developer talks about using 'best available technology' to control the pollution, but the process is new. There's no plant like it in the world, and with a brand new process, accidents can happen."
The only other tire-to-energy plant operating in the United States is the Exeter Energy Limited facility in Sterling, Conn., which burns more than 10 million tires a year, about a third of what the plant here would burn. It's in an industrial park 15 miles from the nearest residential neighborhood. Another tire-to-power plant exists in Japan, but in recent years, tire incinerators have been rejected in Minnesota and Ontario, Canada.
"If this is such a good idea, how come no place else is competing for this?" Mr. Barnes said. "This stretches the definition of a renewable resource. There are better way to recycle tires."
About 300 million tires are scrapped in the U.S. each year, with about half of them used as fuel, often mixed with coal.
According to its air pollution permit application to the state Department of Environmental Protection, the facility would be a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week operation that each year would emit 354 tons of nitrous oxide, 690 tons of carbon monoxide, 179 tons of sulfur dioxide, three pounds of mercury, and almost two dozen other chemical compounds.
It would also emit 235 tons of soot a year, significantly more than the 159 tons from the 10 top industrial, hospital and municipal soot emitters operating in Erie County in 2006, the last year for which statistics are available.
There are five public schools within a one-mile radius of the proposed facility, including Edison Elementary, just 300 yards from the property.
The school board has discussed the proposal, said Robin Smith, board secretary, and wants to hold a hearing and determine whether the plant posed "any adverse health and safety concerns."
"Officially, we have no position right now but we're doing fact-finding on the health effects," Ms. Smith said, adding that Mr. Rubino is holding a "seminar" for board members Aug. 21.
Mr. Rubino said the tire-to-energy facility would fully comply with state and federal emissions limits. He said opponents' claims that the plant would create a health hazard are "hogwash'' and scare tactics.
"All industries have emissions," he said. "The question is, are they injurious to human health? If ours were, we wouldn't get a permit. We are well below all of those thresholds."
But the Erie County Medical Society isn't convinced that simply meeting the state pollution standards would protect residents' health.
In a letter to Erie City Council last month citing the project proposal's estimated emissions, the county's already poor air quality due to soot emissions and its high lung cancer rate, the medical society called for an independent health assessment of the project.
"We're not taking a position on the tire plant until an assessment is done and its results are known," said Dr. Nancy Weissbach, medical society president. "But we do feel very strongly that such a study needs to be done."
The DEP, which originally said it would make a decision on the air pollution permit this summer, has suspended its review and requested additional air-quality information from the developer.
"Our air-pollution section in Harrisburg noticed during its review of the permit that the applicant failed to take into account Lake Erie when modeling its emissions patterns," said DEP spokeswoman Freda Tarbell. "Large bodies of water can influence air currents, so we're awaiting information from the applicant on the impact of the lake."
Mr. Rubino must also apply for a state waste permit to cover the tire-chipping operation and the ash it would produce.
The project also has run afoul of Erie's zoning rules, which place a 100-foot height limit on development along the lake shore. In a reversal of an earlier decision by a zoning officer, the zoning board voted in late July to disallow construction of the twin 150-foot boilers.
Bobbi Dzuricky, whose wood frame home on shady East Sixth Street is just half a block from the proposed project, said it would ruin the neighborhood, which, because of its racial and ethnic diversity, has been declared an "environmental justice" area by the state.
"If this project was on the West Side of the city or in Downtown Pittsburgh, it wouldn't fly," said Mrs. Dzuricky, whose front yard, like those of many of her neighbors, has a red and white, block-lettered "STOP THE TIRE PLANT" sign planted in the middle of it. There are also lots of "For Sale" signs in the neighborhood.
"Older neighbors I know are feeling like they're being forced out by this and are not going to get what their house is worth," she said. "I've lived here and paid taxes for 30 years. I understand he [Mr. Rubino] has the right to make money on his property, but he has to be smarter about how to do it."
Al Messina, executive director of the Dr. George J. D'Angelo Boys & Girls Club of Erie, said the club's board is taking no position, terming it a "political issue."
Don Hopey can be reached at
dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
First published on August 10, 2008 at 12:00 am
Passport Companies
Portfolio | Featured | Website Design: Premium | Small Business
www.passport-companies.comPassport Realty, LLC is headed by Gregory J. Rubino, who has been engaged in selling and leasing properties for third-party clients for 25 years. Formerly a Vice President of Baldwin Brothers, Inc., Greg launched Passport Realty, LLC in late 2007, an endeavor in which he was joined by several seasoned professionals.
Passport Realty sought the expertise of newline Creations to design and deploy a website solution that embraced efficiency while also delivering a means to managing real estate properties through the website's content management platform. Utilizing the real estate property listings module coupled with the ProWebsite + CMS platform, newline Creations successfully delivered the highly functional and informative website for Passport Realty.
In effect, the website served a dual-purpose for Passport Realty. From an informational standpoint, it provided prospective and current clients with an overview regarding each business division, while also providing an outlet for Passport Realty to showcase commercial real estate.