Earlier this month, the Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club partnered with the Brandywine TB Southern Neighborhood Coalition and two other non-profit organizations, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Groundswell, to educate communities in Southern Maryland about how they can clean up the air while saving money on their energy bills at home.
The event was designed to create intense discussion among community members as to how they can help shift energy consumption from dirty and hazardous fossil fuels to cleaner and more sustainable forms of energy while saving money on their energy bills.
Many of the community members shared that they were paying way too much for energy while simultaneously being affected by dangerous air pollution. Families in the Brandywine/Waldorf area breathe pollution from a coal-fired power plant, a gas-fired power plant, a coal ash dump, extensive diesel traffic, heavy industry, gravel pits, and more. Meanwhile, three new fracked gas power plants are currently under construction in the same area.
Residents expressed frustration for the explosion of new gas burning power plants in their community while the number of air quality monitors in their region has decreased. Data about the health impacts of power plant pollution are decreasing while the pollution itself is increasing. Children's health was by far the heaviest topic discussed amongst the participants. Power plant pollution causes and worsens asthma and other health problems, which keeps kids home from school and parents home from work on code orange and red air quality days.
Groundswell gave residents some simple tips on how to improve air quality and save money by reducing their energy usage with low-cost energy efficiency measures. The organization provides home energy audits and upgrades that are affordable thanks to the EmPOWER Maryland program, which allows power utilities to invest in energy efficiency instead of building new polluting power plants.
Then Sierra Club Organizer Seth Bush shared another program that is cleaning up pollution while investing in energy efficiency: The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) -- a long-standing climate action policy. The policy requires fossil-fuel-burning power plants (coal, gas, oil) across the Northeast to pay a certain amount for each ton of Carbon Dioxide they emit. Maryland's share of that revenue is then granted by the MD Energy Administration (MEA) to homeowners and renters to fund energy efficiency upgrades (i.e. weatherization), renewable energy like solar, and bill assistance for those who struggle to pay their energy bills. The Sierra Club and several of our partner organizations are currently advocating for RGGI to be strengthened by setting new pollution reduction goals that are in line with Maryland's own climate action plan. A stronger RGGI would bring more funds to communities like Brandywine and Waldorf for investment in alternatives to polluting gas and coal power generation like residential solar and energy efficiency.
These opportunities excited residents as they learned how they can make their homes drastically more energy efficient while reducing the need for polluting power plants.
It seems that many of the participants came in with the mind-set that they have no power to do anything about energy and health problems in their community. However, many of these participants left with a greater understanding of how they can drastically cut down their energy usage (and air pollution) by utilizing local energy saving programs available to them thanks to EmPOWER Maryland and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
If you would like to bring a discussion like this to your community or learn how you can clean the air and save energy, please contact our MD Beyond Coal Organizer Seth Bush at seth.bush@sierraclub.org.
You too can learn to cut your energy footprint, save money, and clean up our air!