Ameren's Labadie power plant
By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI
Environmentalists in Missouri celebrated earlier this month when a ballot initiative requiring investor-owned utilities to produce more renewable power faced no organized opposition and passed with a resounding 66 percent of the vote.
Last year, the administration of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius denied the permit for a massive new coal-fired power plant, even though the political fallout virtually paralyzed the 2008 legislative session.
Both developments bode well for a greener future. For now, though, Missouri and Kansas are belching more than their fair share of dangerous toxins.
According to a report released today by the Environmental Integrity Project, both states are among the Dirty Dozen when it comes to mercury pollution.
Mercury is a potent toxin that can impair the nervous system and lead to brain damage in children. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the major culprits in releasing the heavy metal into the environment are coal-fired power plants, which account for 40 percent of the nation's mercury emissions. Using EPA data to rank power plants by their mercury emissions in 2007, the Environmental Integrity Project compiled a list of what it labels “the worst of the worst.”
Missouri and Kansas host a handful of the those worst offenders.
In Kansas, Westar’s Jeffrey facility ranked 22, releasing 736 pounds of mercury in 2007. Also in the Sunflower State, the La Cygne plant, operated by Kansas City Power & Light, ranked 49. To KCPL’s credit, though, La Cygne’s pollution was more than 50 percent lower than the previous year, by far the best improvement of any facility on the list.
Aside from KCPL, Missouri didn’t fare well, thanks largely to St. Louis-based Ameren UE. That company’s Labadie plant came in at number 5, ejecting 1,518 pounds of the neurotoxin in 2007, 11 percent more than the year before. Also in the top 50 for total emissions was Ameren’s Rush Island facility. When the EIP analyzed which plants were coughing up the most mercury per gigawatt of energy, Ameren snagged six spots on that list, too.
Susan Gallagher, a spokeswoman for Ameren, responded to my phone call with a lengthy e-mail.
"Our mercury emissions are not 'deadly,'" she began. "There has never been any association between our emissions and ill health effects."
She pointed out that power plants not included in the list might have been "offline" for various reasons and thus had lower emission levels. She noted that some mercury doesn't dissolve in water -- which is how it gets into the human food chain. And she also disputed the widely accepted medical effects of mercury consumption.
"Scientists have been studying pregnant women and children in the Seychelles Islands - where they eat fish daily that are contaminated with mercury at higher levels than you will find anywhere in the US," she wrote. "They have been studying these women and children for 20 years and have never found any detrimental IQ effects."
But rest assured, Ameren is going to step up its efforts to deal with the non-problem. In a couple of years. In a different state.
"We will continue to test mercury removal technology on our units. In Illinois we will begin controlling mercury by 2010 with new technology."
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EIP? Really, Carolyn? I know you usually go off half cocked and spread bullshit in the name of protecting the planet, but you would think using credible sources would be of some value to you.
It was under EIP�s enemy, GW Bush that power plants were first held to the fire for mercury emissions. This rule, the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR), the first to require limits on mercury emissions from power plants in the world, requires the reduction of mercury emissions from power plants by 70% from 2005 levels. Additionally, all power plants are required to publicly report their emissions every year including their environmental progress.
There are SO many other facts, oddly missing from you and EIP�s scare-aganda. But, seeing as how facts are inconsequential to you, I suppose I should just save my time and allow you to continue your path towards the idiocy that has become the media�s version of �environmental protection�. Shit, if the recent past is an indicator, you may even win a Nobel Prize for your moronic rambling.
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