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Time
for Clean Smokestacks
Air
pollution from coal-burning power plants still
contributes to hundreds of deaths each year,
causes millions of economic damage in Virginia
each year and harms the environment.
Pollution
from power plants puts at risk the lives and
health of millions of Virginians, harms water
quality, threatens animal and plant life across
the Commonwealth, reduces yields of agricultural
crops, and degrades scenic views, threatening
tourism-based businesses. Because Virginia
citizens suffer the adverse impacts of poor air
quality, Virginia must act now to significantly
reduce power plant pollution from in-state
facilities.
In
April 2004, the Environmental Protection Agency
announced specific areas in Virginia with more
than 2.5 million residents (including 41 cities
and counties) that fail to meet minimum national
air quality standards for ozone pollution.
Policies requiring in-state power plants to
install modern pollution control equipment are the
most efficient and effective way to assist these
areas in achieving healthful air.
Air
pollution causes serious, preventable harm to
human health.
Pollution from under-controlled coal-fired power
plants in Virginia and upwind states has been
estimated to cause approximately 1,000 deaths,
28,000 asthma attacks, and 246,000 lost workdays
every year in Virginia.
Power
plant pollution helps form smog smog and deadly
fine particles, with well-documented and dangerous
consequences to human health. The most troubling
harm is premature death.
According to a study conducted in 2003,
coal-fired plants produce pollution that triggers
premature deaths of an estimated 31,200 Americans each
year,
shortening their lives from months to years.
Nationally,
power plants are the largest uncontrolled sources
of toxic mercury, which causes permanent damage to
the nervous and kidney systems, and threatens
fetal development and children’s mental health.
People ingest mercury when they eat fish from
rivers and lakes where high levels have settled in
the water. Mercury accumulates in the fish,
becoming increasingly toxic. A recent Center for
Disease Control study showed that one of every 10
women of childbearing age now have blood levels of
mercury that place them and their unborn children
at risk.
Air
pollution degrades priceless natural treasures in
the Commonwealth. The Shenandoah National Park
is the country's third most-polluted national
park, and among
the 10 most endangered parks nationwide, due to
high levels of air pollution. Because of acid
precipitation caused primarily by pollution from
power plants, streams in Shenandoah continue to
become more acidic and less able to support even
the acid-tolerant native brook trout. Shenandoah is one of eight national parks
that officially fail to meet EPA’s health-based
limits on ozone pollution.
The same pollution that triggers premature
human deaths also shrouds scenic views, reducing
annual average visibility in the Park to one-quarter
the natural range.
Nitrogen
causes the greatest harm to the Chesapeake
Bay. Up to one-third of the nitrogen entering
the Bay falls from the air, and almost half of
this airborne nitrogen load comes from stationary
sources.
Air
pollution costs Virginians money. The
economic costs to Virginia are significant. Poor visibility caused primarily by air
pollution from power plants costs the state in
excess of $138 million. Studies
also have concluded that a 25 percent improvement
in visibility could yield as much as $30 million
in increased sales and tax revenues, and 800 jobs,
for local communities surrounding the Shenandoah
National
Park.
Ozone
also harms plant life. Ozone at levels found throughout the
growing season in Virginia's countryside costs Virginia
farmers up to $19 million annually (2000 analysis)
due to due to reduced crop yields. This figure
does not include the cost of reduced yields in
grapes, one of the crops most vulnerable to
reduced yields from ozone.
North
Carolina acts to reduce power plant pollution.
The "North Carolina Clean Smokestacks
Act" enacted in 2002 had the support of
health, environmental and utility interests. It
requires North Carolina utilities to reduce
sulfur dioxide emissions by 74 percent and
year-round nitrogen oxide emissions by 78 percent
as well as substantially reduce mercury emissions
by 2013 based on 1998 emissions.
Acting
now provides more certainty for state utilities.
Most
of the power plants that would be regulated by a
policy to address multiple pollutants fueled by
coal. Virginia
has a
tradition of supporting coal-producing
communities. A
reasonable policy could allow the continued use of
coal as a fuel while improving air quality
throughout the Commonwealth.
Delegate Reid offers a proposal. During the
2004 General Assembly session, Delegate John
(Jack) Reid, R-Henrico, introduced Clean
Smokestacks legislation (House Bill 1472).
As introduced, the bill required
eight of the largest coal-fired, under-controlled
power plants in Virginia to reduce sulfur dioxide
emissions 88 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions
75 percent by 2015 based on 2001 emission
levels. HB
1472 also required
mercury emission reductions of 90 percent by 2008.
The legislation was carried over in the House
Agriculture,
Chesapeake
and
Natural Resources Committee for further study and
action.
Virginia
must require coal-burning power plants to install
modern pollution controls.
Virginia
can begin to address our growing air quality
problems by significantly reducing sulfur dioxide,
nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions.
Policies to require power plants to install
modern control equipment could achieve
reductions of up to 95 percent of these
pollutants. Now
is the time for
Virginia
to advance a clean air agenda that will protect
human health, our natural environment and our
long-term economic interests.
--
January 17, 2005
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