Clean Air Reports

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Executive Summary

The New Jersey based company, LS Power, is in the permitting stages for building a 1,200 MW coal power plant in southwest Georgia.  If this plant were to be built it would have pollution effects in nearby counties and across the state.  As part of LS Power’s application process, the company was required to detail the proposed plants annual emissions of several major pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, mercury and lead.  These pollutants cause respiratory and cardiovascular problems, can poison people who eat fish, damage crops and ecosystems, and create an unsightly haze that can travel for hundreds of miles.

Burning coal for power is an inherently polluting process.  Coal plants have been cleaned up to a certain degree with the help of certain filters and scrubbers that reduce some pollutants, but the basic pollution problems with coal plants have not changed.  What follows is a detailed look at the pollution that will be emitted by the proposed Early County Plant and the impacts that we can expect to see.