Utah Moms for Clean Air

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

By Brian Moench, Founder and President of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment
Deseret News, Dec 17th, 2008

Clean-air advocates have different nightmares than most people. Mine usually involve snorkeling in a pool of sulfur dioxide while breathing from a diesel engine tailpipe and listening to Sean Hannity on my coal-powered iPod.

But my new worst nightmare came from a public notice issued by the Utah Division of Air Quality (DAQ). In breathtaking defiance of medical science, climate science and the central role clean energy must play in any economic revival, the DAQ has approved the construction of one of the nation’s dirtiest fossil-fuel-burning power plants right in the heart of Salt Lake and Davis counties surrounded by thousands of homes, tens of thousands of children and contaminating the airshed of the entire Wasatch Front.

An out-of-state company, Consolidated Energy, has received the green light to construct a 109-megawatt power plant in North Salt Lake on property owned by the Holly oil refinery. The plant would burn primarily petroleum coke and residual fuel oil, the dirtiest and cheapest fossil fuels available. Overall, the emissions from such plants are many times worse than from coal power plants, equivalent to an incinerator that burns used tires.

As most Utah residents know, the air quality along the Wasatch Front is already a public health hazard. But the extent of the hazard is still under-appreciated. Thousands of published studies in the world’s most prestigious medical journals and the official positions of the world’s premier medical institutions reveal the following:

As many as 2,000 Utah residents die prematurely every year because of our air pollution. Most of these deaths are due to heart attacks, strokes, episodes of heart and lung failure and lung cancer. Even children suffer significant health effects because of our air quality: increased rates of premature birth, low birth weight, SIDS, overall infant mortality and death from respiratory disease. This proposed plant would give off uniquely toxic emissions that are likely to cause higher rates of cancer in children and adults.

Levels of air pollution already common in Utah are associated with children showing aggravation of asthma, permanent loss of lung function and diminished intelligence. Genetic damage has been proven to be the end result of air pollution leading to a broad array of diseases that manifest decades after exposure and even in subsequent generations. Virtually every health consequence caused by smoking is also caused by air pollution.

The DAQ justified approving the plant with this rationale: The contribution to our poor air quality from this facility alone would be small, therefore it is safe. The same could be said about every pack of cigarettes smoked. The damage from each pack is small, therefore it is safe. If you see your 14-year-old smoking, relax, that one pack won’t kill him.

The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News both reported today, November 10, 2008, that Utah’s bad air wreaks havoc on those along the Wasatch Front with ailing hearts.   The results of study by, among others, BYU’s own Dr. Arden Pope, are not a surprise, but it is always good to have more evidence of our concerns.

See the Deseret News’ Story “Does Pollution Raise Heart Risks?” By Lois Collins HERE.

“Utah’s bad air tough on weak hearts
By Heather May
The Salt Lake Tribune

Add this to the pile of evidence that shows the Wasatch Front’s dirty winter air should send you packing for mountain air: Moderate increases in pollution send more heart-failure patients to the hospital.

A study published Nov. 1 in the American Journal of Cardiology shows Utah’s air pollution leads to a 13 percent increase in hospitalizations, likely because the microscopic soot and dust released by automobiles and industry prevents the heart from maintaining adequate circulation.
“That ought to be a concern to anybody with heart failure. It also should be of concern to all of us,” said C. Arden Pope, a study author whose prior work has linked pollution increases to lung illnesses and increases in heart attacks. Heart failure occurs when the heart can’t pump enough blood, and can be caused by heart attacks.

Still, the environmental epidemiologist at Brigham Young University, who wrote this month’s article with researchers and doctors at Intermountain Healthcare, said he’s optimistic about the findings.

With heart disease being the leading cause of death in Utah, “anytime you can find a risk factor that’s controllable, it’s sort of good news,” Pope said. “The bad news is that we do have episodes where our air quality is quite poor. . . . We have made some success. It’s not clean enough.”
John Nemelka knows. The 56-year-old heart-failure patient takes about 40 pills a day for his weak and damaged heart muscle and an inherited disorder that puts him at risk for sudden death. He estimates he stayed indoors five to seven times last winter during inversions.

“When I start gasping for air, that’s when I turn around and go back in the house,” said the West Jordan man, who has a pacemaker and is awaiting a heart transplant. “When it [the heart] just doesn’t work properly, the least little bit of inversion and problems in breathing all affect your heart.”  Dale Renlund, medical director of the heart-failure program at Intermountain Medical Center and co-author of the study, said he is now telling heart-failure patients to stay indoors during “yellow” and “red” air-quality days.

“What’s been surprising is that many of them have already known this, that when the air pollution is bad they don’t feel quite as well,” Renlund said. “They will say, ‘You didn’t need a study to tell me that.’ ”

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Cris Cowley of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment published a fascinating commentary in the Salt Lake Tribune connecting water of the Snake Valley on the Utah - Nevada border with future air quality downwind.

The test case is California’s Owens Valley, one of the saddest stories in a long string of sad tales of water in the West. As every drop of water disappeared from the Owens Valley, the valley became

a dead alkali flat that has become the largest source of particulate air pollution in the United States.

This is the shocking fact that everyone should read twice. If Utah allows Las Vegas to drain the Snake Valley — and the plan is quite similar to what happened in the Owens Valley, we cannot claim ignorance of the consequences.

Utahns would be downwind of the blowing dust from the Snake Valley. We likely would suffer the health consequences of inhaling this dust, with increased respiratory, kidney and liver aliments, and increases in cancer.

Governor John Huntsman can veto the plan to drain Snake Valley. Read the full commentary, then let the Governor know what you think.

More:

• “Don’t let thirsty Las Vegas suck the life out of Utah,” Cris Cowley, Salt Lake Tribune, August 9, 2008.
• Governor John Huntsman’s Office - phone: 801-538-1000, web: http ://governor.utah.gov/goca/concerns.html.

Sunday at the Salt Lake City Library, Dr. Brian Moench, of Utah Physicians for a Health Environment, spoke on “Utah’s Air Pollution: Should You Give Up and Move Out of State?” The answer for some might be yes, but most of us see enough hope ahead that we will stay here and make the difficult changes necessary to clean up the air.

What can be done, in addition to ordinary Utahns acknowledging the problem and changing our lifestyles? Dr. Moench say we

need to “change our political leaders” by letting them know what a high priority it is to deal with air pollution.

“That’s the most important part of this whole picture,” he said, adding the issue cuts across political and economic boundaries.

We need to be informed about what the Utah politicians are doing about air pollution.

Two months ago, a legislative committee panned a task force recommendation for raising an additional $3 million a year to step up air monitoring. And, in the 2007 Legislature, lawmakers kept spending on environmental programs flat while infusing most other state programs with some of the $1.6 billion budget surplus.

Governor Jon Huntsman Jr, on the other hand, has made clean air one of his top three priorities.

In an interesting counter to the false dichotomy set up by some Utah business people between caring for our air and keeping our economy healthy, Dr. Moench pointed out that pollution-related health care costs are a drain on Utah’s economy. He said, air pollution causes about 2,000 premature deaths per year in Utah. This number does not, of course, include those whose respiratory and cardiopulmonary problems are caused or worsened by air pollution but who don’t lose their lives. Clean Air that we can all breathe in common is clearly best for Utah’s economy.

• Read the whole story: “Utah’s air: Expert says breathing pollution is like smoking five cigarettes a day,” Judy Fahys, December 10, 2007.

Cherise Udell, President of Utah Moms for Clean Air, and Dr. Brian Moench, President of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, recently wrote a letter to the Editor of the Ely News in eastern Nevada about proposed Nevada coal plants.

The Ely News published this letter last week. Look for the title, “Utah has concerns.”

Utah has concerns

To the Editor:

As clean air advocacy groups for Utah citizens, the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and the Utah Moms for Clean Air would like to respond to the editorial that appeared in this paper on Sept. 21 in support of the proposed Nevada coal plants.

Acknowledgement of the down side to these plants was limited to, “We don’t believe the plants will foul the air in Steptoe Valley . Nor do we believe Great Basin National Park or Utah have anything to fear from the two plants. And nor do we believe Reid’s proposal will do anything to cut overall carbon dioxide emissions.”

Decisions regarding building more coal plants should be based on science and facts and not just “beliefs.” We offer some science and facts that should be considered before Ely residents endorse these coal power projects.

(more…)

In September, Dr. Brian Moench of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment proposed the following resolutions to the Utah Medical Association House of Delegates. The resolutions on Clean Air and Mercury Exposure were adopted by the House. It’s great to see this public support for clean air resulting from the hard work of our clean air ally, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment.

Resolution # 2 - Clean Air

RESOLVED, That UMA publicly support Governor Huntsman’s initiatives to improve Utah’s air quality by moving to a renewable energy portfolio within the state; and be it further

RESOLVED, That UMA work to have the Utah Division of Air Quality adopt the stricter standards advocated by the CASAC to protect the health and well being of the citizens of Utah; and be it further

RESOLVED, That UMA support clean air by publicly announcing UMA support for clean air initiatives, and at least yearly, publicly support strict monitoring and enforcement of Utah State air quality standards and emphasize the health impacts of particulate, and ozone, air pollution.

ADOPTED

Resolution # 3 - Mercury Exposure

RESOLVED, That UMA urge Governor Huntsman, and the Utah State Legislature, to support the development of renewable energy sources within the State of Utah; and be it further

RESOLVED, That UMA contact the elected state and federal officials from the State of Utah and ask them to oppose the development of coal powered generating plants that would directly contribute to mercury contamination in the State of Utah; and be it further

RESOLVED, That UMA request the Utah Department of Environmental Quality to study mercury levels in maternal and fetal blood to determine the extent of human environmental mercury contamination and study the potential health effects of this contamination on the children of Utah; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the UMA House of Delegates reaffirm support for the September 2005, Resolution 2 - Mercury Exposure (A-05).

ADOPTED

One Salt Lake Tribune reader is“Disgusted with Fireworks,” and preliminary data is in.

Preliminary data show one Ogden neighborhood’s fireworks pumped so much smoke and heavy metals in the air Wednesday night, levels reached nearly 25 times the health standard for the fine-particle pollution called PM2.5 between 10 and 11 p.m.

These spikes may be “high enough to cause violations of the federal health standards” as they have in years past. Dr. Brian Moench of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment called the spikes “acutely deadly.”

“This is a kind of celebration in defiance of public health,” he said, adding that high pollution “ought to be factored into how these events are handled.”

As more Utahns realize the danger of Utah’s polluted air, perhaps more will, as the writer to the Tribune Public Forum wrote, “get some guts and put an end to this antiquated form of mindless entertainment.”

• Jeff Baird, “Disgusted with Fireworks,” Public Forum Letters, July 5, 2007.
• Judy Fahys, “Fireworks create a pollution infusion: Air-quality levels hit the danger zone after July Fourth festivities,” July 6, 2007.