I didn’t want my first post about the newspaper to be negative. I have a lot of friends who work there, and as the only game in town, they are an easy target that lots of people shoot at. Besides I consider it an everyday miracle how a multi-page broadsheet which contains tens of thousands of words, all perfectly paginated with pictures and fully-designed ads, arrives at my stoop before 6:00 AM every morning. I know how hard it is to put three paragraphs together let alone multiple diverse stories every day. Newspapermen and women have my utmost respect.

But I am dumbfounded that after nearly a year and a half of publishing story after story covering the facts and high emotion surrounding Erie Renewable Energy’s effort to build a power plant with waste tires as the fuel, it is only coming out now that there are not enough tires out there to fully operate the plant. And it took a Pittsburgh newspaper, the Tribune-Review to dig that out first.

On Sunday, August 31st, Allison Heinrichs penned an extensive story in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about the tire-power plant controversy in Erie. I find it interesting that after talking about the history of the site at IP and the players, and before talking about the environmental impact, she examines the availability of the raw materials: the tires. In talking to the various tire recyclers within that 200 mile radius of Erie, she found that 90 percent of the tires in that area are being reused and recycled for everything from running tracks to new tires. The layout of the story is important, because it points out the fallibility of the idea before the ramifications of it.

In a nutshell, her story revealed that ERE’s business plan probably won’t work. If you can’t find the tires close to the plant, it will cost too much to bring them in from farther away to make the model work.

This past Saturday, essentially the same story was run by the Times-News, six days after the Trib article and 16 months after the announcement of the plant proposal.

First, I wish to point out that I asked for clarification and/or correction from Jim Carroll, the Erie Times-News writer on the ERE beat, but did not receive a response before posting time. I want my readers to know that I will always strive to get first sources and am totally willing to post a retraction if I’m incorrect or mistaken on an issue.

Both articles quote a Keep Erie’s Environment Protected spokesman, who has appeared in articles before, maintaining that in addition to the environmental risks, there was this question about material availability. However, it seems that the ETN did not chase down that angle, which is a really big angle, until now after the Trib scoop.

Why is this important? Because if the media (and that means everybody; not just the paper. I mean how hard would it have been to have a TV reporter and photog drive to Pittsburgh to talk to the tire recycling guy?) would have vetted the ERE business plan, it’s possible that through the bright light exposure of extensive news coverage, this whole project could have gone away like any other goofy business idea. And it could have happened before thousands of dollars were spent in legal bills, high emotions exhaled and a community divided.

Is it the responsibility of the news media to fully vet a proposed business development, to examine the viability of the idea and the players? Before you rush to say “yes,” consider this: the media must walk a fine line between being properly skeptical and seemingly anti-progress. At the other end of the continuum, for their self-preservation, it’s important for the media to be supportive of business, open to new ideas and growth, and look warily at the forces of NIMBY and BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody). There are plenty of nay-saying voices that upon the first blush of any idea will shout out, “that will never work in Erie.” I don’t think we want our local media chiming in.

However, in this case, a $300 million energy project, the biggest of its type in the world and potentially most controversial, needed a team coverage approach right at the onset, investigating every developer claim and deconstructing the business plan and people for viability. Our recent local history with juice plant developers and invisible supermarket builders demanded that.

We’ve heard a lot about toxins, and not enough about the tires themselves.

In the end, it’s maybe no big deal that the locals got scooped by the big city guys. I just wonder if the hysteria we’ve already endured, and the emotions yet to come, could have been tempered by a more fully-engaged news media early on.