Moms, Docs, and Kids Call On MDE For Healthy Air

July 15, 2015
 
As six year-old Tal Kosten stood before the audience, his mother Maranda described the difficulty of explaining air pollution to her children after a trip to the pool was cancelled during a code orange air quality alert three weeks ago. How, Maranda posed, does a parent protect their child when the very air they breathe is harmful? Parents can protect against the sun with sunscreen, but there is no way to filter the air other than forcing children to stay inside. At this point, Tal chose to speak, saying that  “it's no fair that kids around Baltimore cannot go outside in code orange,” and asking for the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to help him and other children like him in the state.  
 
Tal and his mother were two of many in a diverse array of doctors, environmental advocates, public  interest groups, and concerned citizens advocating for stricter NOx regulations at an MDE hearing on June 29. David Smedick, speaking on behalf of the Sierra Club, explained how the proposed NOx regulations are drastically less protective of public health than  regulations agreed upon and adopted by the MDE in January of this year, but unceremoniously yanked by Governor Larry Hogan mere hours after his inauguration. The newly proposed regulations require coal plants to run existing pollution controls, but omit the critical health-protective requirements for modern pollution-cutting technology included in the original regulations. The state has said that more time and discussions are needed on the issue. However, David pointed out that the 15-month stakeholder process to develop the previously adopted regulations exhaustively considered all options, and that to repeat the processes would be duplicative and wasteful. “Rather than duplicate the robust, resource-intensive process that already resulted in MDE’s adoption of the original NOx regulation,” David noted, the Department should implement the existing regulation to comply with the Department’s statements on prioritizing human health. 
 
Giving a face to human health impacts, Jackie Fullerton has lived in the Baltimore area her entire life, and currently lives within ten miles of the Charles P. Crane Generating Station, which still lacks modern pollution controls. She also suffers from severe asthma, and has had numerous incidents of asthma attacks without warning, putting her life in danger. “I can’t describe to you what it feels like to feel as though you are going to die,” she stated during her testimony, “but I can tell you that it is a feeling that you never forget.”  In her testimony she criticized the Hogan administration’s scrapping of the January  NOx protections as both short-sighted and prioritizing profit over concern for human suffering. If Hogan truly wants to protect Marylanders’ health, Jackie argues, “then there is no reason that these regulations should have been stopped to begin with.”
 
Combining both her frustration with the Hogan administration and her concern over public health, Lisa Bardack noted the nearly two years it took analyzing options and working with various stakeholders to come up with an equitable solution to Maryland’s high pollution rates, which culminated in the safeguards adopted in January. These plans were even supported by Raven Power, then-owner of half the affected coal plants. “We agreed on this because those communities that live closest to these coal plants… are suffering,” said Lisa, “would any of us allow this if our family lived in one of these communities? I would venture to say no.” Lisa also argued that children, some of the most vulnerable to air pollution, have the least voice in an issue that has become increasingly about monetary gain, and that we are “morally responsible for the protection of all children whenever possible.”
 
This hearing showcased the lack of support for the Governor’s steps to walk back the previously finalized ozone protections.  The Sierra Club and concerned citizens took advantage of their first formal opportunity to be heard regarding Governor Hogan’s troubling stance towards smog control and the message was clear: not a single person came in support of revisiting the previously finalized regulations. Building on this hearing, the Sierra Club will continue fighting for clean air and striving for a healthier future for Maryland by ensuring that every power plant in the state that burns coal is required to have modern pollution controls. 
 
To join the fight for clean air, please fill out our brief survey and let us know how you’d like to be involved: http://content.sierraclub.org/coal/maryland/join-fight
 
Additional media coverage on the NOx hearing is available from:
 
 
 
 
This blog was written by Nicholas Chantiles, Maryland Beyond Coal Organizing Intern. Nicholas may be contacted by email at energy.intern@mdsierra.org.