Environmentalists say the Bush administration is ignoring the government’s own scientists in new proposed air pollution rules. The rules reject advice to further restrict soot and other fine particle pollution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Environmentalists say the Bush administration is ignoring the
government’s own scientists in new proposed air pollution rules. The
rules reject advice to further restrict soot and other fine particle pollution.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Environmental Protection Agency’s own staff scientists and the
independent Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee both found the
EPA needed to issue more restrictive rules regarding fine particulate
matter, that’s soot emitted from sources such as diesel trucks and coal-
burning power plants.
After reviewing 2000 studies linking particulate matter to asthma, heart
attacks, and early death for people with heart and lung disease, the
scientists concluded that standards set by the Clinton administration in
1997 did not go far enough to help reduce health risks. Despite that, the
Bush EPA appointees basically plan to keep restrictions where they are.
The power plant industry indicates further restrictions would be a
financial burden to it, and provide only marginal public health benefits.
Environmentalists say the Bush administration’s proposed rules ignore
mountains of medical research showing this kind of air pollution causes
serious health problems.
Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued rules to cut mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Critics called the rules weak. Now, a different federal agency may have data supporting their claims. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
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Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued rules to cut mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Critics called the rules weak. Now, a different federal agency may have data supporting their claims. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration examined where mercury pollution in Lake Michigan is coming from. The data haven’t been publicly released yet, but sources say Midwestern power plants are the biggest culprits.
If true, that could undercut the EPA’s new mercury trading program. That lets dirty power plants buy the right to pollute from cleaner ones. Howard Learner’s with the Environmental Law and Policy Center. He says the program’s wrong because it treats all mercury pollution equally.
“When it comes to mercury pollution, a trading regime essentially doesn’t work very well, because you have concentrated localized hot spots in which the pollution is highly toxic to the people who live in those communities.”
Several state governments are fighting the EPA’s trading program in federal court. They’d like NOAA’s data, but the states and public will have to wait until the EPA reviews it.
States in the Northeast are trying to set an example for other states by reducing power plant emissions. (Photo by Lester Graham)
A recently uncovered document reveals that Northeast states plan pollution reductions beyond federal requirements. Many of these states have already sued Midwestern states over power plant pollution. Their new effort might put even more pressure on the region’s utility industry. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A recently uncovered document reveals that Northeast states plan pollution reductions beyond federal requirements. Many of these states have already sued Midwestern states over power plant pollution. Their new effort might put even more pressure on the region’s utility industry. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
A document brought to light by the New York Times revealed that nine Northeastern states are working on an agreement to reduce power plant emissions – including greenhouse gases – beyond the federal government’s restrictions.
Besides making significant reductions in pollution, it’s believed the Northeast states are trying to set an example for other states such as those in the Midwest where there are a lot of power plants. Doug Scott is the Director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. He says they’re working on the problem.
“We’re trying to work with the other twelve states in the Midwest Governors Association on long-range plans to try to reduce emissions. That really isn’t much different in concept than what the Northeastern states are doing.”
Scott says reductions might not reach the same levels as the Northeast states’ plan because of greater economic impact on the industrial Midwest.
The Kaskaskia River has been low lately because of lack of rain. But nearby power plants also draw a lot of water from the river... making residents who depend on the river nervous. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
"Smitty’s at the Marina." Right on the Kaskaskia River, near New Athens, Illinois. Smitty's been wondering whether a nearby coal-fired power plant has been using too much river water... making it tougher for boats to launch from his marina. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
A train from the Peabody Coal Company. Peabody Coal Co. wants to build a new power plant. It’s a big energy company that used to have a large coal operation near New Athens. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The U.S. will need more electricity in the next few decades. To keep pace with demand, companies plan to build more power plants. Battles over power generation usually involve air quality or even how much fossil fuel is used to generate electricity. But one community’s facing a fight over how much water a new power plant might use. It’s a debate more of us might face in the future. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
The U.S. will need more electricity in the next few decades. To keep pace with demand, companies plan to build more power plants. Battles over power generation usually involve air quality or even how much fossil fuel is used to generate electricity. But one community’s facing a fight over how much water a new power plant might use. It’s a debate more of us might face in the future. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
(sound of boat motor starting up)
A bearded guy by the name of Smitty is helping fisherman heave off from his riverside marina. On this sweltering afternoon, the marina’s hosting a big fishing tournament. The tournament’s bringing in lots of business, but Smitty’s got a problem. The area’s been hard up for rain recently, and the water’s pretty shallow.
“It makes quite a bit of difference. A lot of the access areas, the small river channels that lead into here aren’t accessible when the water gets low. It’d affect our business, mean a lot less people being able to use it.”
Smitty wonders whether there’s something else keeping this river, the Kaskaskia, shallow. Lately, he’s been asking whether a coal-fired power plant has been using too much river water. The Baldwin power plant, just east of the St. Louis metro area, is owned by Dynegy – a big power company.
Baldwin cools its generators with water from the Kaskaskia. Now another company, Peabody, is building its own power plant nearby. And that new plant will need river water to cool its generators, too.
Several environmental groups and local activists oppose the project. They say the Kaskaskia doesn’t have enough water for a new power plant. They say wildlife, boaters, and city drinking supplies already use the Kaskaskia. The Peabody Company says the plant won’t endanger the river’s water levels. The company will use the latest technology to conserve water.
But, even with hi-tech equipment, Peabody wanted to pump about 30 million gallons each day from the Kaskaskia. State regulators said no, and restricted the plant to 13 million gallons a day. That’s still about as much water as a town of 85,000 people uses, and only 10 percent of the water is ever returned to the river, the rest just evaporates.
Kathy Andria is with a local Sierra Club chapter. She says the project’s water needs are surprising, and worrisome.
“They have water battles out in the West. We haven’t had it before here, but this is really showing what’s in the future for us.”
Andria’s fears could apply not just to this river, but everywhere. The power industry’s already the biggest user of water in the United States, but it’s likely to need even more water soon. In the next few decades, electric companies plan to build at least 100 power plants that will need lots of water.
Right now, no one’s sure what will happen when they start drawing water from lakes, rivers and underground wells. In the meantime, the power industry is looking at ways to better use water.
Robert Goldstein is with the Electrical Power Research Institute, an industry research group. He says the industry’s improving systems that use no water at all, but those are very expensive. In the meantime, though, demands on water continue to rise. And Goldstein says the industry is aware that it has to compete for water.
“It’s not a question of how much water is there. It’s a question of how much water is there, versus what all the various stakeholders want to do with that water, what their aggregate demand is.”
He says even in regions that seem to have a lot of water, communities need to look closely at their future water needs. Goldstein says everyone, not just the power industry, will need to plan water use better.
People outside the industry are also watching how much water power plants use. Dr. Benedykt Dziegielewski is finishing a federal study on the subject. He worries about situations where several power plants draw from the same river or other water source at the same time.
“If you locate another plant, more water will be diverted from the system and at some point it will pre-empt other uses in the future from that same source.”
He says many areas could see more of these kinds of fights over water. Until we know more about demands for water, Dziegielewski says the industry should be as efficient as possible.
“As we go into the future, there is a need to control or reduce the amount of fresh water that is used for electricity generation.”
Environmentalists say that’s the least that can be done. They’re asking why coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants have been allowed to use so much water already. But not all power sources do.
Wind power and other alternatives use little, if any, water. A U.S. Department of Energy report recently made that point.
But given the political clout of the fossil fuel industry, it’s still easier and cheaper to generate power that needs lots of water.
A new power plant on Lake Michigan has some environmentalists worried. (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin USGS)
Construction is expected to start soon on what could become one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the Midwest. Some worry that more coal plants are likely to follow. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Construction is expected to start soon on what could become one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the Midwest. Some worry that more coal plants are likely to follow. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently overturned one of the legal challenges to a power plant expansion along Lake Michigan south of Milwaukee. The company WE Energies wants to build two new coal-fired plants producing more than twelve hundred megawatts of electricity.
Sierra Club attorney Bruce Nilles says many other coal-fired
plants are on the drawing board around the Upper Midwest. He says
regulators can either embrace old and dirty technology or
move toward a more innovative system.
“That we know is available today, whether it’s burning
coal, natural gas, or the opportunity to build new wind farms across
the Upper Midwest, those are the choices we’re facing.”
The owners of the Wisconsin power plant say they will use modern
technology to hold down certain types of air pollution and minimize
the harm to aquatic life in Lake Michigan.
Environmental groups are still challenging some of the plant’s air and water permits.
Some states are worried that the EPA's Cap and Trade program will create mercury hot spots. (Photo courtesy of the EPA)
Several Midwest states have filed a second lawsuit against the Bush Administration’s plans to control mercury. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Several Midwest states have filed a second lawsuit against
the Bush Administration’s plans to control mercury. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
The newest court case takes aim on the EPA’s plan to allow coal-burning power plants to buy and sell pollution credits for mercury – much they way they do for sulphur dioxide. Tom Dawson is an Assistant State Attorney General in Wisconsin. He says the so-called cap and trade system would create mercury hot spots.
“The trouble with allowing for the trading of pollution credits allows certain emitters of mercury to go on emitting their current or slightly reduced levels of mercury thus resulting in hot spots that are immediately downwind of the sources.”
The EPA and White House say they will vigorously defend the mercury rules, arguing that now is the time to move against mercury emissions.
Some environmentalists and residents who live on Lake Michigan fear that an expansion of a coal-burning power plant will have a negative impact on the lake. (Photo by Richard B. Mieremet, courtesy of the
NOAA)
Environmentalists are concerned about two new coal-burning power plants to be built on the shores of one of the Great Lakes. Among their concerns are increased air pollution and that the view of the lakeshore will be ruined. The power company says it needs the plants to meet the increasing demand for electricity. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann-Elise Henzl
reports:
Transcript
Environmentalists are concerned about two new coal-burning
power plants to be built on the shores of one of the Great Lakes.
Among their concerns are increased air pollution and that the view
of the lakeshore will be ruined. The power company says it needs
the plants to meet the increasing demand for electricity. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann-Elise Henzl reports:
Wisconsin Electric power company has more than one million customers in Wisconsin and Michigan’s upper penninsula. The company says soon, it won’t be able to provide power for all of them with its current plants, and the transmission lines that allow Wisconsin Electric to buy power from other states are over taxed. So the company wants to expand a coal-fired power plant twenty miles south of Milwaukee. That would add two coal-burning units and double the plant’s size and output. Paul Shorter is the manager for site coordination.
“From the infrastructure standpoint, if the state wants to grow and attract business, I think that’s one reason. The other reason is to meet that growing demand of about two percent a year, which is related to telephones, TV’s, VCR’s, computers. We’re always asking for more, and companies are producing it, and they have to be supported by energy.”
On a windy spring morning, Shorter is standing on the roof of the existing plant. As waves crash on the Lake Michigan shoreline, Shorter looks north, pointing out the site for the expansion.
“Now this whole area over here is going to be excavated, for placement of the new facilities, there’s going to be about five million cubic yards of dirt that we’re going to move around on the property. Part of it is to cut down that bluff, to get everything down to the level of this current facility.”
Shorter sees power and progress. But a nearby resident, Ann Brodek, sees something else.
“As you look at the plant now, as it sits on the shore, to me, it looks kind of like a looming, prehistoric monster on the edge of the shore. It just is dirty and huge and on a shoreline of a beautiful lake. This is not where that should be.”
Brodek lives just ten miles south of the plant, near the shore of Lake Michigan. She’s among area residents and environmentalists who’ve been fighting the plant. Ever since Wisconsin Electric started trying to get state approval. Bruce Nilles is a senior Midwest representative for the Sierra Club. He says the expansion would destroy a half-mile of shoreline, that’s home to birds and wildlife. And he says the Great Lakes region doesn’t need more coal-burning plants.
“The proposal is using technology that we created, basically, back in the nineteenth century: grinding up the coal and burning it. We know that releases mercury into the environment in very large amounts. All the new studies are showing that we already have far too much mercury in our environment. And once it’s in the environment, it doesn’t go away. Every lake, river, and stream in the state of Wisconsin has a fish consumption advisory, including Lake Michigan, because there’s too much mercury in the fish.”
Wisconsin Electric defends its plan to build coal-burning units. The company says the units would use new, cleaner technology, and meet the requirements of the Clean Air Act. It also says improvements at the existing plant would cut pollution in half. Wisconsin regulators agreed with the company and approved the plan. Opponents sued. They say the state failed to require a complete application for the plant. They also say regulators didn’t look at alternatives, like a natural gas-fired plant. Last fall, a circuit judge agreed with the opponents of the plant. The regulators and Wisconsin Electric appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is where the case is now. The court could give the go-ahead for the plant expansion, or it could throw out all or part of the proposal.
Meanwhile, opponents like resident Ann Brodek are glad their argument is still alive.
“I would think that every bordering state, including Canada, would be speaking out against this thing. This is going to affect everybody, and we’re not going to give up and there’ll be suits. There’ll be lawsuits. We’ll do everything we can.”
The state Supreme Court is expected to annouce its decision by this summer. Wisconsin Electric hopes an answer comes by then. It wants to have the new coal-fired units operating by the summer of 2009, and it’ll take about four years to build them.
Some states are worried that the EPA's new mercury regulations won't protect children and pregnant women from mercury emissions from smokestacks. (Photo by Kenn Kiser)
Several states are filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its recently announced rules for reducing mercury pollution. The states allege the EPA’s rules do not adequately protect children and pregnant mothers from mercury contamination. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Several states are filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency for its recently announced rules for reducing mercury
pollution. The states allege the EPA’s rules do not adequately protect
children and pregnant mothers from mercury contamination. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Nine states joined in the suit, claiming the EPA’s new cap-and-trade program
would lead to mercury hotspots. Instead of making all coal-burning plants
reduce mercury emissions, the plan will allow some plants to continue to
pollute by buying credits from plants that reduce emissions below the EPA’s
targets.
Peter Harvey is the Attorney General for New Jersey. He’s the lead
plaintiff in the suit.
“There are going to be areas of the country that have a lot more air
pollution, which means those residents are at a greater danger of ingesting
mercury, either through the air or through seafood products.”
Harvey says the Bush Administration’s plan does not meet the requirements of
the Clean Air Act. The U.S. EPA has defended the plan in the past, saying
lowers overall mercury emissions by half within 15 years without forcing
companies to add expensive pollution prevention equipment at every plant.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a new rule to reduce mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants. But it might mean higher concentrations of mercury in fish in some inland lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The U.S. Environmental Protections Agency has a new rule to reduce mercury
emissions from coal-burning power plants. But it might mean higher
concentrations of mercury in fish in some inland lakes. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The Bush administration’s EPA rule will use a cap and trade program to
reduce mercury. That means that overall mercury emissions will go down
over time, but some dirtier power plants can buy the rights to emit higher
levels of mercury. That could cause mercury hot spots. Higher levels of
mercury in nearby lakes would work up the food chain and concentrate
in fish. Mercury can cause neurological damage, especially to young
children. The toxin also can be passed on to fetuses.
Canadian studies last year already have shown higher levels of mercury in
people who regularly eat Great Lakes fish. The problem is expected to
become more severe in mercury hotspots.
Historically, walleye has had more mercury than some other types of fish in
the Great Lakes, but other large fish such trout and salmon, can also have
higher levels of mercury in their flesh.
The EPA is planning big cuts in certain air pollutants, but environmentalists disagree on whether the rule will help get rid of smog. (Photo courtesy of the National Institutes of Health)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says Midwest states will have to develop ways to reduce emissions of two air pollutants that can drift for hundreds of miles. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports on a new EPA rule:
Transcript
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says Midwest
states
will have to develop ways to reduce emissions
of two air pollutants that can drift for hundreds of miles. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports on a new EPA rule:
The EPA wants big cuts in emissions of nitrogen oxide
oxide and sulfur dioxide in 28 eastern states.
The agency predicts reductions will
largely come through emissions cuts at coal burning power
plants, possibly through programs that allow cleaner-burning
utilities to sell their pollution credits to others, as long as
total emissions are reduced.
Bharat Mathur is acting administrator of the EPA’s Midwest region. He says the rule will cut smog and soot while preserving the use of coal as a viable energy source.
“That’s good for coal producing states in our region such as Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.”
Some environmental groups are happy with the EPA rule. But others
say some urban counties in the midwest would still not meet federal
standards for ground-level smog.
