Report Links Philadelphia Deaths to Power Plant Pollution
The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss. -- June 10
It seems so obvious: Dirty air is bad for you. Soot in our skies triggers asthma attacks, poisons the blood, causes heart attacks and increases lung cancer rates.
For Mississippi, it's a matter of 337 lives each year that are shortened
because of particulate matter generated by power plants, according to the
report.
"The research is in," said Stephanie Gros, a community organizer
with U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a public interest advocacy group.
"Power plant pollution is causing people in this country to die
prematurely."
Gathered with a small group Wednesday across the street from Mississippi
Power's gas-fired Jack Watson power plant on Lorraine Road, protesters blamed
the dirtiest plant in the state for 34 premature deaths in 2000.
Mississippi Power spokesman Kurt Brautigam, observing the handful of
protesters carrying signs like one that read, "Power plant pollution
kills," said he disagreed with the report's conclusions.
"The overall body of science is what the rules, the laws, the
regulations that oversee our industry are based on," Brautigam said.
"We comply with every one of those regulations. That's the way we do
business."
Leland Deck, principal investigator for the report and vice president of Abt
Associates, admitted there is a lot of controversy over linking air pollution
models with health data, but he said the science behind it is "well-
established."
He agreed with Brautigam there are many factors that must be considered in
reaching such findings, but he pointed out that science over the past 50 years
has consistently shown that air pollution is more hazardous to human health than
previously thought and not the other way around. "There is no proof
particulate matter harms human health in the same way there is no proof that
cigarette smoke harms human health," said Deck. "There is a hell of a
lot of evidence -- but there is no proof."
Meanwhile, Clear the Air, an environmental advocacy group based in
Washington, D.C., is using the release of new data to put political pressure on
the Bush administration to change environmental policies they say contribute to
the problem.
Nationally, power plant pollution is responsible for 38,200 heart attacks and
23,600 premature deaths each year, the report says.
For more information, visit Clear the Air's interactive Web site at www.cleartheair.org/dirtypower
.
By Greg Harman and Tracy Dash
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