Utah Moms for Clean Air

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1. Attend the Division of Air Quality Public Hearing, Tues., Jan. 13, 6:30 pm
DEQ Auditorium (Room 101), 168 N. 1950 W., SLC
Show your support by voicing your opinion or just showing up.
(If you need help formulating your ideas, communications Ph.D. student
Brenden Kendall is happy to help. Email: brenden.kendell@gmail.com
It is critical that we fill the auditorium to show the depth of public concern.

2. Submit your comments to the Division of Air Quality by Jan. 15, 2009.
Email: jjenks@utah.gov.

3. Write or call Gov. Huntsman and your state legislators stating your opposition to the petcoke plant.

Locate your legislator
View the state Senate map to find your senator.

Send correspondence to the Governor at
Governor John Huntsman, Jr.
Utah State Capitol Complex
350 North State Street, Suite 200
P. O. Box 142220
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-2220

801-538-1000
800-705-2464
Find his email form here.

4. Send an email or letter to the Mayor of West Bountiful: jbehunin@gmail.com
West Bountiful City Hall - 550 North 800 West, West Bountiful, Utah 84087
Even if you don’t live in West Bountiful, pollutants from this proposed plant will affect you if you live along the Wasatch Front.

5. Write a letter to the editor to one or more local newspaper(s) : Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, Davis County Clipper

To help you write your letters, please refer to the following talking points, background information, and a sample letter.

Thank you for your participation!

Talking Points

Like coal, petroleum coke is not a clean source of energy. We need to be investing in clean, renewable energy, such as wind, solar and geothermal, all plentiful in Utah.

Consolidated Energy says their plant will contribute just a little more pollution, but it is time to draw the line and reduce the pollutants in the air we breathe. The pollution from this plant would be the equivalent to putting 10,000 additional cars on the road.

The one million pounds of pollution from this plant will permeate the Salt Lake Valley for the next 50 years. The heavy metals from its smokestack will land on every carpet, counter top, playground, garden, and swimming pool and end up on the hands of every child.

This plant is especially dangerous to our children because of the many tons of toxic chemicals and heavy metals called “HAP’s” (Hazardous Air Pollutants) that will be emitted. Even the Utah Department of Environmental Quality that is preparing to approve the permit admits that no amount of exposure to HAPs is safe. Even trace amounts of HAP’s can cause genetic damage, cancer, brain damage, and metabolic and reproductive diseases. The unborn are the most at risk.

This plant is not needed to keep your lights on. Rocky Mountain Power has not asked for this plant and you may not even receive any of its electricity. While your family’s health will be put at risk, you will receive no benefit or compensation.

More pollution in the Salt Lake Valley has a negative economic impact. It discourages new business, stifles existing businesses like tourism, and hurts your property values.

Background Information

What is it? Consolidated Energy Systems is seeking a permit for a 109-megawatt, petroleum coke-fired power plant in West Bountiful, Utah. (This is on the border with Woods Cross, so you may have seen that name mentioned in the press or elsewhere.)

What is petroleum coke? It’s what is left over from refining petroleum, after all the usable elements (gasoline, heating oil, diesel fuel, etc.) have been removed. It is much dirtier than coal, containing higher concentrations of heavy metals, which are released when combusted.

Where would the petroleum coke come from? Montana and Wyoming. This means it must be brought by train or truck. (If shipped uncovered it could contribute to pollution because it is a very dusty material. The Port of Los Angeles has required that petroleum coke be kept covered.)

The preliminary emissions permit from the Division of Air Quality allows the following emissions (in tons per year):

Particulate Matter 10 (PM10) ( 60.9 tons )

Nitrogen Oxides ( 98.1 tons )

Sulfur Dioxide ( 97.8 tons )

Carbon Monoxide ( 98 tons )

Volatile Organic Compounds ( 49 tons )

Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAP) ( 9.59 tons )

Single non-metal HAP ( 8.67 tons )

Single metal HAP ( .92 tons )

Particulates: PM10 includes particles 10 microns in diameter or smaller. PM2.5, the subset of PM10 responsible for health effects, is increasingly being tracked instead of PM10. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), long-term particle exposure can lead to a variety of health problems, such as increased hospital admissions, emergency room visits, death from heart or lung diseases. People exposed to particulate pollution may experience reduced lung function, chronic bronchitis and even death. Even short-term exposure is linked to aggravated lung disease, asthma attacks, increased respiratory infections, and higher hospitalization and death rates.

HAPs: Hazardous Air Pollutants, either metal or non-metal. These compounds have been specifically linked to cancer. Petroleum coke is especially high in the metal HAP’s vanadium and nickel, which are carcinogens or likely carcinogens.

What about Carbon Dioxide emissions? This plant is estimated to emit 900,000 to 1,000,000 tons of CO2 per year. This is, of course, one of the major green house gases causing global warming or climate change.

Sample letter
Feel free to state in your own words or insert other points you think are important.

Dear [ insert as appropriate: Division of Air Quality, Governor Huntsman, Representative, Senator, Mayor Behunin] ,

Consolidated energy is seeking a permit to build a 109-megawatt, petroleum coke-fired power plant in West Bountiful, Utah. If approved, the plant would emit a million pounds of air pollution annually into our already impaired airshed. Poor air quality endangers everyone, particularly children, the elderly, and those with respiratory problems. Furthermore, this plant would contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and diminish our environment.

Utahns want clean, renewable energy, not dirty power. Wind and geothermal projects in our state are already proving themselves to be viable. Please protect public health and our planet by stopping the issuance of this permit. Our future deserves better.

Sincerely,

Add your name

FILM SCREENING: DON’T MISS THIS IMPORTANT AND TIMELY FILM

When: Tuesday, September 9th at 7:00 PM
Venue: Tower Theater, 876 East 900 South
Admission price/free: FREE!

Screenings are also taking place in St. George and Richfield. Call 801-467-9294 for more information.

SALT LAKE CITY -
By MIKE STARK 09.04.08, 4:16 PM ET

Robert Redford was so struck by a story of Texas mayors, ranchers and other citizens who stood up against plans for a batch of new coal-fired power plants that he narrated a film about it.

The actor and founder of the Sundance Film Festival is lending his voice to a 34-minute documentary called “Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars.” The film is being shown in seven cities in Utah and Nevada next week.

Redford ’s hoping the story inspires others to face off against the “mythology” of nonrenewable resources and consider renewable energy alternatives.

“It makes no sense going in a direction that represents yesterday,” Redford said in an interview with The Associated Press this week.

The story centers on a fight that started in 2006 over 19 proposed coal-fired power plants in central and east Texas . The plans galvanized a diverse group of citizens who might otherwise have divergent political viewpoints: ranchers, environmentalists, business leaders, legislators, lawyers and more than a dozen local mayors.

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By Lester R. Brown
Washington Post
Sunday, August 31, 2008;

Legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is half right. We do need to harness this country’s wind resources for a homegrown source of electricity, as he has been urging this summer in expensive television ads. And we do need to reduce the $700 billion we may soon be paying annually for imported oil. But part two of Pickens’s plan — to move natural gas out of electricity production and use it to fuel cars instead — just doesn’t make sense.

Why not use the wind-generated electricity to power cars directly? Natural gas is still a fossil fuel that emits climate-changing gases when burned. Let’s cut the natural-gas middleman.

Plug-in cars are here, nearly ready to market. We just need to put wind in the driver’s seat. Several major auto manufacturers, including GM, Ford, Toyota and Nissan, are producing plug-in hybrids. Both Toyota and GM are committed to marketing plug-in hybrids in 2010. Toyota might even try to deliver a plug-in version of its Prius gas-electric hybrid, the bestseller whose U.S. sales match those of all other hybrids combined, next year.

Some Prius owners aren’t even waiting for Toyota. They’ve jumped the gun, converting their cars to plug-ins simply by adding a second storage battery, which increases the distance you can drive between recharges, and an extension cord that you can plug into any wall socket to recharge the batteries from the electrical grid. This lets them push the car’s already exceptional gas mileage in routine daily driving of 46 miles per gallon to more than 100 miles per gallon.

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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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