Power plants harm both human health because of the air pollution they emit. Particulates from power plants contribute to teh high number of emergency room visits and asthma attacks in the D.C. metropolitan area each year. Because of this, there is a major need to address the harmful effects of powerplants and to reduce power plant pollution in our region.

Reducing Power Plant Air Pollution In Virginia:

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• " The Virginia Clean Air Now Campaign"

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PEC continues to work with local governments, state officials, and the utility industry to locate new power plants in appropriate industrial areas. In addition to helping identify "Brownfield" industrial sites, PEC has asked the US EPA and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to consider new incentives and regulatory changes to encourage more appropriate locations than the rural sites currently being proposed. Ultimately, PEC's efforts are focused on encouraging the new power plants to replace outdated coal-fired and oil-fired plants at existing power plant sites.

The Route 15 corridor in Fauquier, Loudoun, Louisa, and Fluvanna counties continues to attract proposals from existing utilities, multinational power companies and venture capital partnerships. Three factors that attract the proposals are the presence of major national gas lines, the relatively low cost of land, and the perception that there is a lax local and state regulatory environment in the rural areas of central Virginia.

Meanwhile, PEC's newspaper and television campaign to inform communities about the potential impacts of new power plants in rural areas of the Piedmont have resulted in unprecedented public involvement in local land use decisions in Fluvanna County. Over 400 citizens attended a public hearing on a preliminary zoning issue that would permit power plants to be constructed anywhere in the county, including agricultural and conservation zones.

In Louisa, we support the lawsuit filed by adjacent landowners to overturn a rezoning that permits a 570 megawatt ODEC facility. PEC hopes that strong public opposition - with your support - to larger, 900 megawatt plants, in Loudoun and Fluvanna will encourage the consideration of more appropriate locations.

For more information, contact Dan Holmes at 540-347-2334.

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"The Virginia Clean Air Now Campaign"

The Virginia Clean Air Now campaign advocates protecting human health and the environment by reducing air pollution from outdated power plants and promoting clean energy sources.

Coal-burning power plants that use outdated technology are the single largest source of air pollution in Virginia and across the nation. These facilities generate far more than their fair share of air pollution, dumping tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) into the air every year. This pollution poses tremendous threats to public health and the environment, yet can be reduced dramatically and cost-effectively simply by requiring old power plants to meet the same emission standards plants built today must meet.

Ecosystem Impacts

Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide from outdated power plants are major contributors to poor visibility and declining forest and stream health in Virginia's mountains, reduced crop yields on Virginia's farms, and poor water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. For instance:

Due to acid deposition, only half of the state's native brook trout streams have the capacity to sustain fish populations;

Nitrogen pollution is the greatest threat to the Chesapeake Bay, and approximately 25% of the nitrogen entering the bay comes from the air;

In 1996, Virginia's farmers lost an estimated $18 million to $28 million in reduced yields of soybeans, wheat, barley, peanuts, and cotton due to ozone smog. Environmental Law Center

Health Impacts

Power plant pollution poses a serious public health risk. Ozone smog, formed from NOx pollution during the summer months, reduces lung function, aggravates asthma, and causes other acute respiratory problems. The American Lung Association has found that people with chronic asthma and bronchitis are particularly vulnerable to ozone smog, including 28,000 children and 140,000 adults in Northern Virginia, the most polluted area in the state. In 1998, Virginia recorded one or more violations of federal health-based ozone limits on 52 days from May to September.

Dirty Power Loophole

For more than 20 years, a loophole in the Clean Air Act has exempted aging power plants from meeting modern pollution standards, including eight of the 10 coal-fired power plants operating in Virginia today. Those eight "grandfathered" plants, in 1997, for example, spewed 212,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 97,000 tons of nitrogen oxide into the air - the bulk of emissions for the electric utility industry in Virginia.

The reduction in pollution achieved by requiring these eight plants to meet modern pollution standards would be the equivalent of removing 4 million cars from Virginia roads. And the cost would be minimal - conservative estimates put the cost of cleanup at $7 per household per month, about the same as two video rentals. Further, if the "grandfathered" plants in the four states in Virginia's air shed (Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia) were brought up to date, 82 percent of the sulfur dioxide and 70 percent of the nitrogen oxide from the electric utility sector in Virginia could be eliminated.

Virginia Clean Air Now Campaign was launched in August, 1998 jointly by the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Izaak Walton League of America. The campaign report, Power That Pollutes: Closing the Loophole on Outdated Power Plants, documents the problem of aging power plants and how air pollution can be dramatically and cost-effectively reduced by bringing all power plants up to modern pollution control standards.

The Virginia campaign is part of a larger regional effort, the Southeast Campaign for Power Plant Cleanup, consisting of campaigns in Georgia, Florida and Tennessee.

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