Utah Moms for Clean Air

Op-ed by Cherise Udell
Salt Lake Tribune May 3, 2008

Let’s be real: “clean coal” is a marketing slogan not a technological reality. Coal does currently provide us with a reliable source of electricity but at an astronomical price that is hidden from us consumers. Maybe you pay for it with your child’s asthma. Maybe you paid for it with your father’s heart attack or your grandmother’s stroke that took her speech away. Maybe you lost a baby to SIDS on a particularly bad air day.

Emissions from coal fired-power plants are a leading cause of smog, acid rain, global warming, air toxins – and premature deaths. The EPA estimates that over 30,000 Americans are dying prematurely each year due to power plant emissions - the majority of which are coal-powered. This doesn’t even address the high mortality rates associated with the mining process. Thus, coal kills more people annually than homicides (16,000 in 2000) or AIDS (14,000) and nearly as many as traffic accidents (42,000).

So when coal industry advocates like Joe Lucas (vice-president of communications for the American Coalition for Clean Coal) and Bountiful resident, Bruce Taylor (co-owner of the proposed coal plant in Sevier County) say “cleaner coal” what exactly do they mean? According the Union of Concerned Scientists a typical coal plant generates:

• 3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary human cause of global warming

• 10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2)

• 500 tons of small airborne particles, which can cause chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma, and premature death

• 10,200 tons of nitrogen oxide (NOx), equal to what would be emitted by half a million late-model cars. NOx leads to formation of ozone (smog) which inflames the lungs and

• 720 tons of carbon monoxide (CO), which causes headaches and place additional stress on people with heart disease.

• 220 tons of hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds (VOC), which form ozone.

• 170 pounds of mercury, an extremely potent neurotoxin, where just 1/70th of a teaspoon deposited on a 25-acre lake can make the fish unsafe for human consumption. The Great Salt Lake is already heavily contaminated with mercury.

• 225 pounds of arsenic, which will cause cancer in one out of 100 people who regularly drink water containing 50 parts per billion.

• 114 pounds of lead, 4 pounds of cadmium, other toxic heavy metals, and trace amounts of uranium.

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A Salt Lake Tribune editorial this week focused on coal-fired power plants, including opposition in central and southern Utah.

Even if the folks in Utah don’t take a dim view of these plants - they provide high-paying jobs, taxes and electric power, after all - our neighbors in Colorado, Kansas and points east should. That’s the thing about air. Everybody’s downwind of somebody else.

When the external costs of coal are considered, coal is not so cheap after all.

The Tribune called for the Utah Legislature and Governor to create higher air-quality standards for electric utilities.

Read more:

• “We’re all downwind: Conventional coal power means smoke,” Tribune Editorial, Salt Lake Tribune, March 13, 2008.

Utahns have been well-aware of mercury in our water and air since methylmercury levels in the Great Salt Lake shocked us all in 2004.

Methylmercury is the toxic form of mercury after it has been biologically transformed. It poses a public health risk, especially to children and unborn babies.

A neurotoxin, it builds up in the food chain and attacks the neurological system, causing retardation in the unborn and learning disabilities and behavioral problems in children. Humans are exposed most commonly by eating contaminated flesh, usually fish.

Utah has consumption warnings for several fish statewide and four duck species on the Great Salt Lake. Idaho has similar warnings.

Now, we are seeing action by the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection to shut down Nevada gold-ore plants until they can remove mercury from their emissions.

“This is a bold action they’ve taken,” said Cheryl Heying, director of the Utah Department of Air Quality. “It shows they have teeth, and they can bare them.”

Read more:

• “Utahns praises closure of mercury-spewing Nevada plant,” Judy Fahys, Salt Lake Tribune, March 13, 2008.

Utahns are lucky. Our state has an abundance of waste-free, carbon-free, renewable sources of energy. Yet, as our air gets dirtier and our climate hotter and drier, just 0.5% of our energy generation comes from renewable sources.

We can and must do better. As the Utah State Legislative Session begins this week we have a chance to do just that. This session, Sen. Scott McCoy (D-Salt Lake) is sponsoring a bill that sets a standard of 25% of electricity coming from renewable sources by 2025, while also promising renewable energy development in rural Utah. Twenty-six states already have similar standards, though none have ever been proposed in Utah.

Unfortunately, Rocky Mountain Power — the state’s largest electric utility — is pushing a competing bill that could stifle renewable energy development in Utah. This bill, sponsored by Sen. Curt Bramble (R-Provo), puts Rocky Mountain Power in the driver’s seat while giving the utility every opportunity and excuse to put the brakes on actually delivering renewable energy to Utahns.

Join us Wednesday for a citizen lobby day and press conference to support the “real McCoy” renewable energy standard and help us show the Legislature that Utahns want meaningful renewable energy legislation now.

What: “Real McCoy” Renewable Energy Citizen Lobby Day
and Press Conference
Where: Utah State Capitol Rotunda
When: Wednesday, January 30th
9:30am - 11:30am Citizen Lobbying
11:45am - 12:30pm Press Conference

S.B. 173 Renewable Energy Provisions:
Track online or Read the bill.

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Are you set to move out on the No Coal Express to Ely, Nevada, next week, January 9th? Helping to make banners for the trip on January 7th? Just submitting comments in opposition to permits Nevada intends to give for new coal-fired power plants up-wind from Utah?

If so, keep yourself informed of what Nevada officials are saying about the public hearings.

The [Nevada state Division of Environmental Protection] is evaluating [Sierra Pacific Resources’] air pollution control permit application for the proposed Ely Energy Center to determine whether it meets state and federal clean air standards. A draft permit for the plant has been out for public comment since early November.

Greg Remer, chief of the agency’s air pollution control bureau, said people can submit technical comments at the hearing and ask questions about the proposed plant’s ability to meet clean-air standards.

But Remer added the hearing is not “a town meeting on whether they oppose or support the construction of the plant, and it wont be a forum to air concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.”

Remer added that there are currently no federal or state clean-air standards or regulations that govern carbon dioxide emissions or other greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Read the full article in the Las Vegas Sun:

• “Nevada agency schedules hearing on proposed coal plant,” Las Vegas Sun, January 4, 2007.

The two biggest culprits in Utah’s air pollution problem can be summed up by cars and coal. Coal-fired power plants in Utah and neighboring states contribute greatly to the dangerously unhealthy air we are all breathing. Several new coal-fired power plants are being proposed for Nevada upwind from the Wasatch front. One of them called the Ely Energy Center (EEC) will be just north of Ely, NV. Let’s stamp out the EEC before it even gets off the ground.

If you can’t go to the hearing in Nevada or the poster-making party January 7, but still want to be sure the NDEP knows you don’t want them to grant the permits they intend to grant for this proposed Ely Energy Center, you can submit written comments to

Francisco Vega
Nevada Division of Environmental Protection
Bureau of Air Pollution Control
901 South Stewart Street, Suite 4001
Carson City, Nevada 89701-5249
(775) 687-9343
(775) 687-6396 FAX

To read more about the application filed by Sierra Pacific Resources Company for the EEC, go to the NDEP website.

“Air Pollution Control” at the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection:

• 12/27/07, Notice of Proposed Action - Issue an operating permit to construct for a Class I facility. Toquop Energy, LLC Three Riverway Suite 1100 Houston, TX 77056
• 10/31/07, Notice of Proposed Action - Application to issue an operating permit to construct for a Class I facility. Sierra Pacific Resources Company 6226 West Sahara Avenue Las Vegas, Nevada 89146.

We understand it will be a minority who can make the trip to Ely. If you’d like to make your voice against new coal plants heard in another way, please join us for a “Clean Energy, No Coal, please!” poster-making party for kids and parents. We will make posters and banners for the No Coal Express to take to Ely.

Bring your creative ideas, photos of your children or other relevant photos, and any favorite art supplies. We will provide large poster board, lots of markers and pens, glue sticks, etc. There will be a brief child-oriented discussion of the problems with this coal plant to kick things off. We want to send the message that clean energy is better for everyone and coal is not the answer.

This event is sponsored by Utah Moms for Clean Air.

Date: Monday, January 7
Time: 3:00 - 5:00 pm
Place: Sprague Library downstairs meeting room (2131 S 1100 E, SLC)
Contact: Travis Harvey travis@utahmomsforcleanair.org

The two biggest culprits in Utah’s air pollution problem can be summed up by cars and coal. Coal-fired power plants in Utah and neighboring states contribute greatly to the dangerously unhealthy air we are all breathing. Several new coal-fired power plants are being proposed for Nevada upwind from the Wasatch front. One of them called the Ely Energy Center (EEC) will be just north of Ely, NV. Let’s stamp out the EEC before it even gets off the ground.

The Nevada Department of Environmental Protection (NDEP) is holding a public hearing in Ely on Wednesday, January 9 regarding the air quality permit being considered for the EEC. An environmental impact study has already been conducted by the NDEP and they are strongly considering granting the permits.

Several groups are arranging to take a busload of Utahns to Ely, NV to attend the public hearing. The bus would depart SLC at approximately 1:00 pm to make the 6:00 pm hearing. Because of the late hour, we would most likely stay in a comfortable hotel in Wendover, NV that would include a buffet breakfast the next morning. Arrival time back in SLC would be approximately 11:00 am, January 10. The maximum cost would be about $40 to $45 per person. Donors are helping to underwrite part of the trip and reduce the cost substantially if not completely. The firm details of cost are yet to be worked out. A small sacrifice of 24 hours of your precious time, and a few dollars could make a dramatic difference in stopping this ugly coal plant.

National media are covering this trip, and a private film company making a documentary on the national movement to stop the coal rush will be taking note. The fact that a busload of people would travel 5 hours to tell a neighboring state that we don’t want their coal emissions is a big message that will resonate loudly across the country to the large financial institutions that may finance such a large project. So, the impact of the trip will be greater than just the outcome of the public hearing.

If you wish to join the No Coal Express, contact Travis Harvey of Utah Moms for Clean Air (travis@utahmomsforcleanair.org) as soon as possible. We ideally need to confirm attendees by January 2.