WNEG-TV

ELBERT COUNTY - Elbert County commissioners voted 'YES' to bringing a waste to energy incinerator to the area. All the while, some residents have been making their choice against the project clear with large signs lining Highway 72 and neighborhood streets.

"The incinerator project poses severe risk to human health and the environment and we are also worried about burdens placed on the tax payers in the form of lost property values and financial obligations that we might be responsible for in the future," says Elbert County resident Kevin Lewis, who has been voicing his concerns about the project since day 1.

But even though health risks are a big concern for many Elbert County residents, the county's administrator told WNEG's Laura-Ashley Harris today, that the emissions that would be given off by such an incinerator would fall well below states and federal standards, making it completely safe.

But that's a claim that Larry Winslet of the Georgia Sierra Club says simply isn't true. "The problem is that there is evidence now that there are no levels of mercury dioxide that are safe and they accumulate in the environment and the food chain and they don't go away. So even if they are operating within limits they are still dangerous," explains Winslet.

Concern about the $400 million project didn't seem to stop county commissioners from moving forward with the plans to have the incinerator built. While commissioners voted yes today, they still must push the solid waste plan to the state to get it properly permitted. That's a process that county administrators say could take 12 to 15 months.