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Sunday, October 03, 2004

Environment - Stories this weekend

The Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette has a really excellent (and lengthy) piece today on the conflict between pollution and economics, titled "The black cloud over power." Here are some quotes, but the piece deserves a full reading:

PETERSBURG – Ray Breidenbaugh has mixed feelings about the 600-foot power plant stacks that loom over his back yard.

On one side are the millions of pounds of invisible toxins the stacks pour into the air every year, chemicals that cause acid rain, pollute streams and lakes, poison fish and cause thousands of premature deaths across the nation.

But the other side is the economic reality: jobs at the plants, jobs at the coal mines that feed them and jobs on trucks and railroads that haul the coal between them. Breidenbaugh, now retired, worked 24 years in southern Indiana’s coal mines.

That conflict between pollution and economics can be seen across Indiana’s Ohio River Valley, where rural counties with small populations are listed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory as the worst polluters in the state, far outpacing counties with much larger populations, such as Marion, Allen and even Lake, known for its heavy industry. * * *

Power plant operators point out their emissions are within the law and insist they are not a threat to public health, but environmentalists point to a university study showing children in Vanderburgh County – surrounded by power plants – are five times more likely to have asthma than are children in Allen County.

Which is where Breidenbaugh finds himself: The same industry that environmental groups and federal officials say is wreaking environmental havoc is also the lifeblood of dozens of towns throughout southern Indiana’s Ohio River Valley.

“That’s work,” Breidenbaugh says of the power plant behind his house. “That’s employment.”

It’s also the dilemma that all of Indiana is in: The electricity that runs fax machines, light bulbs and blow-dryers across the state comes at the expense of the air along the Ohio River, some of the most beautiful, rugged areas Hoosiers have, and all of the nation’s East Coast downwind. Residents in northeast Indiana don’t have to think twice about turning on an air conditioner, thanks to power plants hundreds of miles away. * * *

Alcoa’s power plant is a symbol of how southern Indiana’s coal mines have fueled the power plant industry there: The 600-megawatt plant, large enough for about 200,000 homes, is used almost exclusively to power Alcoa’s aluminum smelting operation in Newburgh, the largest aluminum smelter in the United States. Instead of locating the smelter where the alumina ore is, Alcoa put it where the coal is and brings the ore to tiny Newburgh by barge. Coal is about half the cost of oil and one-third the cost of natural gas.

Alcoa’s power plant and smelter employ 2,300 people and have an economic impact on the community of about $1 million a day, Rideout Lambert said. They also put a combined 5.6 million pounds of toxins into the air in 2002, including more than a ton of lead compounds.

Of the top 10 counties ranked by point-source air pollution – air pollution coming from smokestacks – only Elkhart County at No. 6 has a population larger than 72,000. And in every case except Elkhart County – with dozens of plastics, fiberglass and composite firms – the overwhelming majority of that pollution is coming from coal-fired power plants. * * *

The divide over what the power plants have brought to the area can best be seen at Cinergy’s Gibson station, where the reaction to the massive power plant – the third largest coal-fired power plant in North America – often depends on what side of the Wabash River you live.

On the Indiana side, Cinergy’s 400 jobs and huge property tax payments have made it a cornerstone of the town of Princeton and Gibson County.

Andrea Howe, editor of the Princeton Daily Clarion, finds that out every time her newspaper reports on the plant or its emissions. Members of the Town Council work at Cinergy. So do county commissioners. So does the head of the chamber of commerce. South Gibson Schools built all new elementary schools in the early 1990s, thanks to the property taxes the plant pays.

“On this side of the river, it’s hard for people to view them as the big, bad polluter,” Howe said.

The other side of the river is Mount Carmel, Ill., where it became much easier to view the plant through that lens after acid fogs descended on the town this summer. When Cinergy installed a new selective catalytic reduction unit – much like the catalytic converter in your car – on one of the generating units at Gibson, something went wrong and resulted in a blue cloud of acid engulfing Mount Carmel. The selective catalytic converter removes nitrogen oxide from the stacks, turning it into nitrogen and water.

"Storms either can natural or man-made" reports Daniel Schorr this morning on NPR's Weekend Edition. He talks about hurricanes and asks: is the separation so clear anymore, referencing a report Thursday in the NY Times that hurricanes draw their intensity from the warming of ocean waters. Listen to it here. The Times story, titled "Global Warming Is Expected to Raise Hurricane Intensity," is available here.

Finally, a NYT story today, datelined Lewistown, Montana, and headlined "Toxic Paint Muddies a Beloved Creek." Some quotes:

Big Spring Creek rises up out of the prairie at the cottonwood-tree-shaded state fish hatchery a few miles outside this agricultural hamlet. It oxbows several miles through farmland and pine-studded bluffs and into town, through neighborhoods and downtown.

The deep, clear creek also flows through the center of life here. The water is piped without treatment into the faucets of city residents, fishermen come from around the country to drop flies into its pools, children and adults float the stream in inner tubes, and a local tavern has a hole in the floor a few steps from the bar which allows patrons to watch swimming fish while they drink.

"Lewistown wouldn't be here if it weren't for Big Spring Creek," said Torger Oaas, a local lawyer.

That is why high levels of toxic PCB's found in the stream and their unlikely source have sent a ripple of shock through this central Montana town of 4,000.

PCB's were first discovered in the stream in the early 1990's, but at low levels. An advisory was placed on eating fish. But after an old industrial site at Brewery Flats, which officials thought was the likely source, was cleaned up, they kept finding PCB's. Last year, they started sampling above the flats, which no one had thought to do before.

"The levels got higher and higher the closer you got to the hatchery," said Don Skaar, a pollution control biologist with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "We sampled fish right below the hatchery and they had levels 30 times the 'no eat' levels. It was totally out of the blue.''

The problem turned out to be the blue-green paint that was used on the walls of the hatchery. Since the 1960's the paint, with high levels of PCB's that were added to make it more elastic, has been flaking off the concrete walls at the hatchery, washing downstream and accumulating in a toxic layer of sediment, a foot below the creek bottom in some places. * * *

Both Mr. Haugen and Mr. Paulson are part of a class-action lawsuit against the state and the Monsanto Company, which made the paint, and are represented by Mr. Oaas. They want the creek back the way it was, which would probably mean dredging the bottom, especially near the hatchery. The fish, on the other hand, may have high PCB levels for five years or more. A lawyer representing Monsanto did not return calls seeking comment. There was considerable talk about the PCB's at the Montana Tavern, on Lewistown's Main Street, which has an unusual connection to the stream.

The creek runs under the streets of downtown Lewistown for three blocks or so before it emerges into the open. There is a wooden box with a plexiglass top over a hole in the tavern floor that looks down on the stream, where a spotlight illuminates the long sleek bodies of trout. Jim Awbery, the bar's owner, said his son once caught a six-pound brown trout in the hole.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 3, 2004 02:27 PM
Posted to Environmental Issues