Category Archives: EPA

No dumping! Drains to waterways

No dumping Rainwater only Seen Saturday near old Pine Grove School. NPDES is National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System:

Water pollution degrades surface waters making them unsafe for drinking, fishing, swimming, and other activities. As authorized by the Clean Water Act, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program controls water pollution by regulating point sources that discharge pollutants into waters of the United States. Point sources are discrete conveyances such as pipes or man-made ditches. Individual homes that are connected to a municipal system, use a septic system, or do not have a surface discharge do not need an NPDES permit; however, industrial, municipal, and other facilities must obtain permits if their discharges go directly to surface waters. In most cases, the NPDES permit program is administered by authorized states. Since its introduction in 1972, the NPDES permit program is responsible for significant improvements to our Nation’s water quality.

Yes, I know Valdosta also does this. I like it that in a subdivision in an unincorporated part of Lowndes County that the county does this.

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Cleaner energy creates jobs in Iowa

In Iowa they didn’t whine about cleaner power regulations like Southern Company did, they went ahead and got on with it without dragging their feet for months or years. Simply complying with the new EPA regulations has created jobs for Iowans.

Matt Kasper wrote for ThinkProgress today, Pollution Control Retrofit Creates 400 Jobs In Iowa: Project Is A ‘Win-Win For Iowa’s Economy And Environment’

Alliant Energy in Iowa is celebrating an emission-reduction technology that will help a power plant meet new standards — creating 400 jobs in the process. One recent study found that “EPA’s two new air quality rules create 1.5 million jobs.”….

The Ottumwa Courier reported:

“The OGS [Ottumwa Generating Station] project is a win-win for Iowa’s economy and environment,” said Pat Kampling, president and CEO of Alliant Energy. “The project at OGS will create approximately 400 good-paying construction jobs for Iowa’s working families and foster future economic growth while making Iowa’s air cleaner.”

Better for public health, better for less climate change, and better the economy: more jobs for Iowans.

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Toxic air in Georgia —NRDC

Georgia's air: not quite as bad as Florida's.

WTXL wrote Thursday, Florida and Georgia ranked high for toxicity exposure,

According to an analysis released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Florida is the 6th worst state in the nation when it comes to exposing residents to toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Florida's air would rate even worse if Florida Power and Light had to burn coal in Florida instead of at Plant Scherer near Macon to generate power for Florida. Instead, FPL dirties Georgia's air for Florida's benefit.

Georgia is ninth worst on the NRDC's Toxic 20 list, in “Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States”. Here's NRDC's press release.

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Southern Company shutting some coal generation

Southern Company (SO) is reducing its coal fuming and making the rest comply with EPA regulations, and is surprised to discover that won’t cost nearly as much or take nearly as long as it complained only 8 months ago. But remember SO isn’t even abandoning coal and is shifting to big-plant baseload natural gas and nuclear while avoiding distributed solar and wind power.

Cassandra Sweet wrote for Dow Jones and the WSJ 25 July 2012, 2nd UPDATE: Southern Co. Second-Quarter Profit Up as Economy Improves,

Southern Co. plans to shut down about 4,000 megawatts of older, coal-fired power plants to comply with stricter federal pollution rules.

How much coal generation is that? SO’s Plant Scherer near Juliette, Georgia, the largest power plant in the western hemisphere, burning 12 million tons of Wyoming coal every year, is the “nation’s No. 1 producer of carbon dioxide — the heat-trapping gas that is held chiefly responsible in models of global warming” (number two is SO’s Plant Bowen near Cartersville and number three is SO’s Plant Miller in Quinton, Alabama). Each of Plant Scherer’s four plants is rated at 880 megawatts, or 3520 MW total. But don’t get your hopes up: one of those four plants is owned by Florida Power and Light and JEA of Jacksonville, Florida. Why should Florida power companies want to shut down a plant that leaves the pollution in Georgia while exporting the power to Florida?

Continue reading →

This is what a mayor with vision sounds like

Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio speaks at 44:25 about
…the nexus between sustainability and job creation. Every now and then, perhaps once in a generation, there presents itself a moment, an opportunity, for those cities that are willing to seize it, to truly benefit the region for generations to come.
Here’s the video: Continue reading →

VSU Faculty Senate passes anti-biomass resolution

Karen Noll reported on WACE’s facebook page that the VSU Faculty Senate passed a resolution Thursday 19 May 2011 that biomass will not be considered renewable for VSU’s climate commitment goal.

Why? Because leading medical associations have identified woody biomass incineration as increasing risks of “a variety of illnesses, some life-threatening”, because biomass incineration produces more CO2, NOX, and fine particulates than existing coal plants, and because it “may lead to unsustainable forestry practices and a net increase in global greenhouse gas emissions”.

Who proposed this? Continue reading →

Particulate matter is a killer. –Lisa Jackson, EPA, 17 March 2011

Listening to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson about EPA’s proposed new mercury rules, for me, the live feed on facebook did not work, but the one on whitehouse.gov did. A few quotes:
Particulate matter is a killer. We know it results in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

That matches some local concerns in Lowndes County.

How much of a killer? Continue reading →