Sierra Club: Closings a victory for clean air

Feb 9 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Michelle Wolford The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

The closing of three power plants in West Virginia is "a victory for clean air and local residents' health," a Sierra Club release said.

The three plants -- Albright, Rivesville and Willow Island, near Parkersburg -- are slated for retirement Sept. 1 as a result of new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, according to FirstEnergy, which owns the power stations.

"In total, these closures will bring 660 megawatts of dirty, dangerous pollution to an end," Sierra Club said. "The retirements represent a major improvement in the lives of local residents, who have been exposed to the pollution from these plants for decades.

"Pollution from coal-fired power plants contributes to respiratory illnesses and asthma attacks, heart disease and cancer. Closure of these three plants will prevent approximately 40 premature deaths, 64 heart attacks and 620 asthma attacks, according to the Clean Air Task Force," the release said.

"This is good news for West Virginia, because those plants will no longer be polluting our air and water like they have been for 60 years," said Jim Sconyers, chairman of the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club. "We want to ensure that the company has made a commitment to their workforce's welfare once these plants close."

"Closing these old dirty plants is only the beginning of the responsibility that FirstEnergy owes to the surrounding communities. Instead of using public health safeguards as an excuse for the closure of three old and unnecessary plants, they need to increase investments in energy efficiency and create new jobs to assist the workers and community with a smooth transition to a clean energy future," said Sierra Club Environmental Justice Organizing Representative Bill Price.

The Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign works in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies and a nationwide coalition to retire onethird of the nation's aging coal plants by 2020, replacing them with clean energy such as wind and solar by 2030, according to the release.

The environmental group, along with West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, has sued FirstEnergy over "the illegal construction of Albright's coal ash dumps."

In January, it hosted a forum in Albright to discuss the future of the plant. FirstEnergy did not send a representative, but Preston County Commissioners and local members of the state legislature attended.

"These three plants bring the tally of coal plant retirements to 95 since the Sierra Club began its Beyond Coal campaign in 2002," according to the release.

Charles Wilson, of Kingwood, worked at both Rivesville and Albright for 30 years before his retirement in 1982. He said the Sierra Club bragged when it got the Bloomberg grant that "they could use it to close these coal-fired plants."

"Renewable power sources such as wind, solar and hydro can't sustain the electrical grid as we know it, and demand that it be without the steady, versatile and reliable generation furnished by fossil fuel plants and nuclear. These furnish 50-60 percent of the nation's base load," Wilson said. "I think people want to do away with reliable generation before there is something to replace it. It was probably a factor in the closing of the Albright plant."