Hi all, This is information for the energy item during tonights GM meeting. Please read. The Mayor and the Port Commission have maneuvered to, by December, take what has until now been a local community and local waste driven biodiesel program and instead turn it over to the massive multi-national corporate animal parts rendering giant Darling, International which currently is trying to re-brand itself as a 'green' 'recycling' corporation. (The Biodiesel Access Taskforce has unfortunately gone along with this, although a couple of its members are vehemently opposed.) See the original community project information at http://sfwater.org/detail.cfm/MC_ID/18/MSC_ID/114/C_ID/4018/Keyword/grease Darling is the largest corporation of its kind in the world, and it has been guilty of ongoing corrupt and illegal environmental practises, and consumer protection violations. This move by Newsom is very similar to his maneuver a couple of years ago to hand over the City's emerging broadband internet service to the private ownership of Google and Earthlink; but this project has dire environmental, and public policy consequences. This is a quick report to flesh out what Darling is really all about. Darling is far and away the worldwide giant of processing waste animal agriculture parts and restaurant food waste. Many cities and industries depend heavily on it for these services. (Darling was founded 125 years ago as a joint project between the Darling family in Chicago, and Swift Meats.) Darling has launched a worldwide initiative to turn its rendering plants into bio-diesel facilities as an intrinsic part of both its business model and public profile. Apparently, animal parts rendering to create tallow is losing value and the recent biodiesel craze has definitely flipped dollar signs up into Darling's corneas. For a report mentioning why Darling is economically refocusing on biofuel, search for the word 'Darling' in the text at http://mailman.cloudnet.com/pipermail/compost/2001-June/008329.html Darling has been frequently sighted and penalized for violating odor and pollution restrictions, sometimes even after large numbers of complaints over long periods of time. Most importantly, it was found in criminal violation for wrecking the Blue Earth River ecosystem in Minnesota with illegal discharge and waste/carcass dumping from one of its facilities. Darling was also responsible for a big melamine-in-pet-foods incident and recall which apparently was not related to the Chinese melamine scandal. Darling's remedy was to recall the pet foods, grind them up, and then 'dilute' them into farm animal feed; which was then sold to big ag. Darling's new supposed 'green' transformation to biofuels production appears to also be an effort of the company to greenwash its previously very negative public image. You can get a sense of this greenwashing theme by going to Darling's own site at http://www.darlingii.com/ You can see a report that a stock trader made about Darling a little over a year ago, to get a sense of the huge magnitude of Darlings trade operations and profits; and in the final section of the report, the reporter's reference to Darling's potential for biodiesel sales as its "hidden gem" - highlighted with his comment that we should "burn it all"... See: http://seekingalpha.com/article/55125-darling-international-dirty-sexy-money To wrap all of this up, here's a listing, via websites, of various serious environmental and consumer violations of Darling International. Blue Earth River (Minnesota) http://www.dallasobserver.com/1997-01-02/news/darling-will-cough-up-4-millio... http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-62612946.html Melamine Recall http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/08/pet_food_recalls65.html Chula Vista, CA (search in the document for the word 'pollution') http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:FbZhPgS_5-0J:www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb9/boa... Los Angeles, CA http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/28/local/me-54057 http://www.laweekly.com/1998-03-05/news/oh-my-darling/ Dallas, Texas http://cbs11tv.com/local/Darling.International.Stink.2.849280.html Melvindale, Michigan (search the page for the word 'Darling') http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:r7HAypMZt_0J:www.michbar.org/environment... Linkwood, Maryland (search the page for the word 'Darling') http://www.upc-online.org/wpost/990802/environment2.html http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:X6Zk_i2cDh0J:www.mde.state.md.us/assets/... Cleveland, Ohio (search the page for the word 'Cleveland' - also see other parts of this report from Darling covering its full scope of operations) http://www.getfilings.com/o0000916540-00-000003.html peace Eric