Georgia Environmentalists Lead
Nation in Questioning Failure to Regulate Carbon Dioxide
Atlanta, GA – Citizens from
around the state demonstrated their opposition today to the building of yet
another coal-fired power plant in Georgia. The plant will add to the already
high level of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that pollute the air in
this state. The case against this
proposed plant is among the first legal challenges to power plant emissions
since the historic Supreme Court decision in April requiring the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases
that are contributing to global warming.
Friends of the Chattahoochee
and Sierra Club of Georgia, represented by the Georgia Center for Law in the
Public Interest, are challenging the legality of the air emissions permit
issued by the state Environmental Protection Division to Dynegy-LS Power for
its proposal to build a 1200 MW coal-fired power plant in south Georgia’s Early
County along the Alabama state line at the Chattahoochee River.
“We are very disappointed that
EPD has issued a permit for a plant that will only make our air dirtier and our
rivers more polluted,” said Patty Durand, Executive Director of the Sierra Club.
“We have the technological resources to lead the country in breaking the link
between increased economic development and increased pollution, but our state
leaders have not yet shown the political will to engage in a future of cleaner
energy production.”
The Georgia Center
for Law in the Public Interest has identified 17 reasons why the permit issued
by EPD is leading our state in the wrong direction and should be denied. Among the key reasons are:
- The Permit does not include limitations
on CO2. EPD did not
consider whether to regulate this pollutant and should have imposed a CO2 emissions limit on this
plant. This claim is particularly
valid given the April 2nd U.S. Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts
v. EPA in which several states successfully challenged EPA’s failure
to regulate CO2
emissions.
- The Permit fails to impose
appropriate emission limits on other pollutants, including sulfur dioxide
(SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOX), particulate matter &
sulfuric acid mist. The emissions
limits that EPD permitted are not as restrictive as necessary. The process for establishing emissions
limits requires that EPD review all state-of-the-art pollution control
technologies used nationwide and base the limits on the performance of
these technologies. EPD failed to consider
the best available control technologies for establishing regulations.
“This coal plant does not have pollution controls that
meet national standards. While Dynegy will save millions by refusing to use the
best available pollution controls, Georgia’s citizens will pay through
increased hospital visits, premature deaths, and damaged crops,” said Justine
Thompson, Executive Director of the Georgia Center for Law in the Public
Interest, whose group will spearhead the legal efforts to challenge the
permit for the coal plant.
Commenting on EPD’s
permitting process, Durand noted that, “Georgia officials have relied on
old rules to permit a plant relying on antiquated technology. The EPD ignored
the best technology of science and engineering to permit a coal-fired power
plant which can emit mercury that causes brain damages in babies, soot that causes
heart attacks, and other pollutants that cause smog which, in turn, causes
asthma and aggravates lung disease.”
“After breathing smoke from
forest fires 250 miles southwest of Atlanta there is no doubt that pollution
from Dynegy’s coal plant 200 miles away will have an impact on Atlantans,” said
Jennette Gayer, policy advocate with Environment Georgia.
Bobby McLendon, President of
Friends of the Chattahoochee, a group in Early County opposing the plant, said,
“We live here and breathe the air, and our children are going to breathe the
air. I just don’t think that it’s right for
an out-of-state company to endanger our community for the sake of a Texas company seeking to
increase its profits. It’s just wrong to
allow this merchant plant to harm the health of Georgians while providing power
to Florida and Alabama.”
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