Since Augusta has attained the terrible distinction of being the 21st-most polluted city in all of America -- according to Rob Pavey's front-page article ("Pollution rank rises in Augusta," May 2), how can anyone possibly justify constructing a proposed 850-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Washington County?
Recently, you published another informative article that explained that the rate of childhood asthma in Augusta has apparently increased significantly during the past several years. Will the "powers that be" be satisfied only when every man, woman and child in our area suffer from asthma or other related breathing disorders?
When calculating the true cost of building this huge plant, one should include the projected resulting increased medical costs and potential deaths associated with the CSRA citizens' breathing increasingly polluted air.
Hopefully, state regulators and common sense will prevail in this situation, and the plant will never be built. We should all at least have the right to breathe clean air.
William D. Wansley, Thomson
The Augusta Chronicle ©2010. All Rights Reserved.
I was told they wanted to build another nuclear reactor around here somewhere for using as an energy source.
Your point, DE2?
Does the poor air quality have anything to do with the pollen count?
Everyone except 99 percent of the world's most knowledgable scientists agrees that man-made global warming is a grotesque fraud. Bad air is of little concern to people who still think the earth is flat. Georgia already has way too many coal-powered plants. Coal emissions are chock full of mercury. If you think asthma's a problem, try death.
Wansley unwittingly provides the answer to his own question. The air in America (and Augusta) is far cleaner today than it was 50 years ago. And it is cleaner than it was 30 years ago. And cleaner still than it was 10 years ago. As the air has been cleaned up, the incidence of asthma has gone up. I think it was the particles in the air that protected us from asthma (the large particles acted as coagulation sites for tiny particles to cling to - much easier to expel from the lungs). Now that the large particles are gone, the tiny particles are allowing ashma to increase. We need to halt and even reverse some of our air pollution control practices.
Efforts to improve air quality concentrate on reducing nitrogen dioxide radicals, hydrocarbons, and particulates. A real irony is that one of the pollutants (nitrogen dioxide) radicals actually reacts with light to produce ozone. However it is the levels that are critical. When sufficient amounts of NO are available, the chemistry is catalytic: For each OH produced from water, many hydrocarbons can be oxidized and large amounts of ozone produced. However, when NO2 levels become high, the loss of OH to nitric acid, HONO2, slows the reactivity, and the rate of ozone production drops. As a result, in many cities, including Los Angeles, ozone levels are generally higher on weekends, when NO2 levels are lower due to the lack of truck traffic. Scientist are rethinking strategies to regulate ozone production.
Good Lord. Don't you realize that coal was the ONLY fuel that was responsible for the Industrial Revolution? Every home burned wood for meals and coal for heat until the early 20th century. Now THAT was pollution. What we have now is absolutely minor by comparison. Do NOT begin to think that your air quality is not affected by nature itself. Trees emit hydrocarbons all day long. Industry has done wonders with the by-products of production and instead of being critical, why not try some positive reinforcement. And I do not want to hear word one from anybody that does or has ever smoked a cigarette or a joint.
Well that explains it!!!!!
Hehe. Industry has done wonders with the byproducts of production? Try some positive reinforcement? Hehe. Just remember, our polluting pollution today is much better than the old polluting pollution we used to have! Right, Judge? Sounds like the Judge has been lighting up a bit too much.
When I get angry does that contribute to global warming. There is a lot of hot air here.
rofl @ Lamb... Clean coal is available, but I'm with you: Go Nuclear! Hell, they can build a reactor in my back yard...when I can buy Marty McFly's Mr. Home Fusion model???
I think some people on here are too gulable and buy everything big corporations, and their paid off puppets (politicians) spew. I guess these politicians and companies know more than scientists. Polluting more = better air quality, yay! I guess if they told Little Lamb and PT that eating a greey cheeseburger and chili cheese fries was better than eating salad they would be at Hardees right about now.
You missed my point, Imdstuf. I merely pointed out that as the air has gotten cleaner over the past thirty years, asthma rates have gone up. Therefore, if we allow a little more air pollution, asthma rates are likely to go down again. Some of those large particles are beneficial.
I understood your point Little Lamb. Your logic is twisted though. If Asthma rates have risen, I do not think it is because of better air control. If anything, the bad air control in the past has led to such problems being bred into people and passed down. With air becoming cleaner, hopefully people will evolve in the other direction where they do not have asthmatic problems.
Ok, please let me clear something up for you. If you look at what is in the air today and what was in the air 50 or 10 years ago you would find that there is actually less "Large Particles" in the air. We did not have the technology to test for air particles back then that we can detect today. This does not correlate however to their being less asthma then than as their is now. As an public health educator, I always get the "we were more healthy then" speil from people. Its not true. Chronic Diseases were less abundant because they went undetected and treated. There were less occurrences of asthma and other diseases then, becuause the tests were not as good and the medical community was not as knowledgeable. There was no spyrometery 50 years ago, and the machines used 10 years ago were not as affordable, widespread, and small as the ones we have now. Now you could argue that part of the problem are the pharmacuetical lobbyist are helping lowering the threshold for diagnosis to sell more medication to a wider group of people. I would totally agree with you, but they have their own studies to back what they say (Vytorin).
Isn't the majority of mercury introduced into the environment from burning of coal? Nuclear power and hydrogen burning or fuel cell is the way to go with solar, wind, etc. also where feasible. I have thought that centralized power and waste is not the best strategy and would have each home, industry, etc. with separate power and waste storage and recycle. Although water would still be public I would have each home or business recycle waste water for yard use or where clean water is not a necessity, and place limits on water usage. We could be lot more frugal with our use of resources. This would eliminate having public utilities play catch up with growth to provide power, water, waste.