To the Editor:
As both the returning lame ducks and the brand-new ducks contemplate and act on America’s energy future, I might suggest they keep in mind a court ruling and some of the facts surrounding coal.
On February 8, 2008, a federal appeals court struck down the utilities’ attempt to trade the right to release mercury from coal-fired power plants. The court ruled that the EPA unlawfully decided to remove power plants from the most protective requirements of the Clean Air Act. by evading mandatory cuts in toxic-mercury pollution from coal- and oil-fired power plants. A three judge panel held that EPA was required to show that emissions from any power plant would not harm the environment or “exceed a level which is adequate to protect public health with and ample margin of safety.”
Endowed with the world’s largest reserves of coal, the United States is deficient and cannot supply itself with enough of the right kinds of coal to meet its electrical power generation needs. The United States must import coal to meet its demand for electricity. Columbia’s low-sulfur coal is coveted. In 2008 Columbia’s coal exports surpassed $5 billion, 10 times what they were six years earlier. In 2000, America imported 12,512,623 short tons of coal. Ten years later, America imports about double that amount. During 2002-2005, about three billion tons of coal went up in smoke in America. Annually, nation-wide coal-fired power plants emit about two-thirds of the sulfur dioxide, 40 percent of the carbon dioxide, one-third of the mercury (around 96,000 pounds), and 60 varieties of what the EPA classifies as “hazardous air pollutants.” And that’s just what goes into the air. In addition, 130 million tons of coal ash is dumped into “Ash Ponds,” which is about three times as much as all the municipal garbage produced in the U.S.
Between 2002-2005, 72,000 people in the U. S. died prematurely from the effects of coal-fired power plant pollution.
Every week, Big Coal explodes the equivalent energy from the Hiroshima bomb to remove the hilltops from West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Your attention to these facts would be greatly appreciated as you plan America’s energy future.
Peter Cabana
Tisbury
