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Groups Join To Fight Large Threat To Region's Air Quality
Dirty Coal Plant Would Discharge over 25,000 Tons of Harmful Air Pollution

Marissa, IL-At a public hearing held by the state, environmental groups and public health experts from Illinois, Missouri and Indiana joined together with local area residents to publicly condemn a giant, coal-burning power plant proposed in southwest Washington County, Illinois. Their target is the Peabody Corporation's proposed coal plant, which would sit 40 miles southeast of St. Louis and would dump more than 25,000 tons of harmful air pollution into the region's skies, including the Greater St. Louis/Metro East region, an area where air quality already violates federal air quality standards. The plant would sit less than two miles outside the proposed nonattainment area for ozone and fine particulates.

"Peabody's dirty coal plant is one of the largest threats to the region's air quality we have seen in decades," said Tom Prost, a volunteer leader with the Sierra Club. "We can do better. There are cleaner, more affordable alternatives than Peabody's outdated proposal to meet our energy needs and provide jobs without placing more communities, more seniors and more children at risk."

The Greater St. Louis region already has asthma rates 30 to 40 percent higher than the national average. The region was named third worst in the country for asthma last week by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. On February 26, 2004 the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a new report indicating that asthma rates in the United States rose again in 2002 by approximately 4 percent. There are currently about 16 million Americans suffering from asthma.

"Adding more pollution is bad for residents who are already forced to breathe smog and soot from existing pollution sources, especially since over one million Illinois residents now suffer from asthma attacks," said Brian Urbaszewski, Director of Environmental Health for the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago. Illinois' existing coal plants are the state's largest sources of air pollution. An October 2000 Clear the Air Report found that power plant pollution is already causing 1,700 premature deaths and 33,000 asthma attacks in Illinois each year.

Last summer, ozone smog levels in the St. Louis/Metro East area violated federal air quality standards on eleven days-the equivalent of nearly one day a week during the summer months when the air was unsafe to breathe.

"We in the Metro East are extremely concerned," said Kathy Andria of American Bottom Conservancy and the Metro East Asthma Coalition. "Our kids have high rates of asthma. We are bombarded with pollution from refineries, steel mills, chemical factories, smelters and a hazardous waste incinerator. The Baldwin power plant wants to expand and Missouri proposes to issue an air permit to Holcim for a highly polluting cement kiln without requiring controls that could reduce its pollution by 90 percent."

"Citizens will pay for this plant up front with tax subsidies and during its operation in health care costs and impacts to our lakes, rivers and streams," said Kathleen Logan-Smith of Health & Environmental Justice--St. Louis. "Illinois is using taxpayer money to subsidize coal - the least it could do is protect Illinois families and those of us in St. Louis and require clean-coal technology."

"Peabody's proposed coal plant will pollute so much partly because it relies on the wrong coal utilization technology," said John Thompson, Advocacy Coordinator of the Clean Air Task Force. "Much of the air pollution could be avoided by using coal gasification. The technology is commercially available, but costs more than Peabody would like to spend."

"Peabody's dirty coal proposal is inconsistent with Illinois' stated plans to clean up its existing dirty coal plants," said Illinois Environmental Council's Jonathan Goldman. "If we are going to ever have clean air in Illinois we must reject outdated dirty coal plants like Peabody's proposal, and invest in clean, modern power plants that meet stringent pollution control standards."

Coal-burning power plants are also Illinois' largest source of mercury pollution. Mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that is particularly harmful to young children and pregnant mothers. Mercury pollution has poisoned every lake, river, and stream in Illinois to the point that there is a statewide advisory against eating fish. "Peabody's dirty coal plant would add over two hundred pounds of additional mercury into Illinois' lakes, rivers and streams," said Becky Stanfield of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group. "Illinois needs to clean up existing power plants, not produce more soot, smog and mercury pollution."

Downwind residents from as far away as Indiana and Lake County in Northeast Illinois are concerned about the health impacts of Peabody's dirty power plant proposal. "Lake County residents are opposed to Peabody's dirty coal plant because we are already choking on dangerous levels of air pollution without Peabody adding even more soot and smog-forming pollution," said Verena Owen of the Lake County Conservation Alliance. Other organizations opposed to Peabody's proposal include Valley Watch in Indiana and Missouri Coalition for the Environment.