by Melissa Blakley
On June 9, Missouri Public Interest Research Group (MoPirg) canvassers, Sierra Club activists and Concerned Citizens of Platte County joined together for a press conference in front of Kansas City Power & Light’s Hawthorne power plant. MoPirg introduced Clear the Air’s new “Dirty Air, Dirty Power” report and an interactive website where you can click on any coal power plant in the country to see how much pollution they are spewing and how many deaths they are responsible for each year.
Speakers at the press conference included Laura Zahn (MoPirg), Dr. John Spertus (Mid America Heart Institute, University of Missouri, Kansas City), Melissa Blakley (Sierra Club), and Sally Radmacher (Concerned Citizens of Platte County). Local groups used the report to highlight Great Plains Energy’s plans to build two more coal-burning power plants in the Kansas City area.
The report, available on-line at http://cta.policy.net/ documents mortality and health damage due to air pollution from coal-burning power plants. According to the report, power plant pollution kills 24,000 people a year in the U.S. Kansas City ranks 20th among U.S. metro areas for deaths, hospital admissions, and heart attacks each year caused by dirty air from power plants.
The interactive website illustrates death, heart attacks, asthma attacks, hospital admissions and visits and emergency room by state and individual power plant. It also compares the number of deaths, heart attacks, asthma attacks, etc., that can be avoided by implementing either the current Clean Air Act, Bush’s so-called “Clear Skies” plan, or Senator Jefford’s “Clean Power Act.”
The Clean Power Act (Senate) and Clean Smokestacks Act (House) offer the largest and quickest reduction in power plant pollution and are supported by a large coalition of public health and environmental organizations. The Bush administration’s air pollution plan, backed by the nation’s biggest electric power polluters, would delay and dilute pollution reductions required by the current Clean Air Act for dangerous sulfur, nitrogen and mercury emissions. The administration plan also does nothing to cut carbon pollution from power plants, the major cause of global warming.
Concerned Citizens of Platte County and Sierra Club are calling for Great Plains Energy to abandon their plans for more dirty coal-burning power plants and instead invest in clean renewable energy and efficiency programs for the region.