New Report Details Maine Deaths and Health Impacts from Coal-fired Power Plants

NRCM calls for further pollution reductions through EPA rulemaking, enforcement, and legislative action

Natural Resources Council of Maine and Clean Air Task Force

Augusta, ME; September 9, 2010 — In a landmark report released today, the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) has determined that in Maine, coal-fired power plant emissions cause an estimated 43 premature deaths, 35 hospitalizations, and 80 additional heart attacks.

“To put these impacts in context, the tragic coal mine explosion in West Virginia in April killed 29 miners. Coal pollution is silently killing 43 Mainers every single year,” said Dylan Voorhees, Clean Energy Director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

The CATF report concludes that reducing emissions of fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants, one of the nation’s top air pollution sources, can have a direct and significant positive effect on public health, including here in Maine.

The report comes at the same time that oil and coal lobbies are pressuring Congress and the EPA to roll-back clean air laws and regulations.

“There’s no excuse in 2010 for power plant pollution to cut lives short when technology is available that could virtually eliminate this pollution,” said Voorhees.  “It is past time for EPA and Congress to finish the job of cleaning up power plant pollution.”

“The Toll from Coal,” (online at www.catf.us

“The Clean Air Act has been the essential cornerstone of the national effort to reduce air pollution and improve the environment and public health. Maine is at the end of the nation’s air pollution tailpipe. To reduce air pollution that flows here from beyond Maine’s borders we depend on federal action, including the Clean Air Act. We are counting on our Senators to support this effort,” said Voorhees.

On a national level, other key findings of the report were:

“One thing we have learned over the last decade, is that intelligent regulation works, and without significant cost increases to the industry or the consumer,” said Voorhees. “We have made a lot of progress in reducing the massive health tragedies from coal-fired power plant emissions, but much more needs to be done, including the installation of modern pollution controls at every coal power plant. Unfortunately the coal and oil lobbies are gearing up to attack the Clean Air Act’s ability to protect American’s health.”

“The Clean Air Act was the result of bipartisan efforts to clean up our environment and make the air we breathe healthier,” said Voorhees. “First passed under President Nixon and then updated under the first President Bush, it was key leadership from Maine Senators Ed Muskie in 1970 and George Mitchell in 1990 that led to the Clean Air Act as it exists today.”

Coal power plants without SO2 pollution “scrubbers” in the region, which supply electricity to the New England grid, include Brayton Point and Salem Harbor in Massachusetts, Merrimack and Schiller in New Hampshire, and Bridgeport in Connecticut.

www.catf.us

Read the full report here.