Clean Air News

As the new home of WISPIRG's environmental work, Wisconsin Environment can be contacted with any questions regarding this report.  

MILWAUKEE—In the days leading up to public hearings on whether Wisconsin will permit three brand new coal-fired power plants outside Milwaukee, several groups released a report giving Milwaukee mixed reviews on its air quality. WISPIRG, the Sierra Club, and Clean Wisconsin released "Danger in the Air: Unhealthy Levels of Smog in 2002," which found that air quality monitors in Wisconsin exceeded the national 8 hour health standard for ozone 147 times, a decrease of 13 percent percent decrease over 2001. However, the state saw increased violations in the one hour standard 15 times last year, a 88 percent increase, with the worst violations being reported in the Milwaukee area. Nationally, smog monitors in 41 states and the District of Columbia recorded unhealthy levels of air pollution on nearly 9,000 occasions in 2002, nearly double the number of violations of the national health standard for smog in 2001.

"Smog triggers asthma attacks, sends hundreds of thousands of Americans to emergency rooms each summer, and keeps kids from playing outdoors on hot days," said Jennifer Giegerich, WISPIRG state director. "WE Energies' plan to build three new coal-fired power plants at its Oak Creek Site is like pouring gasoline on a fire-It will make a bad situation worse," she continued.

Ground-level ozone or "smog" is formed when pollution from power plants, cars, trucks, and other sources bakes in the heat and sun. Even relatively low levels of ozone can affect healthy people's ability to breathe, but children, senior citizens, and people with respiratory diseases are particularly vulnerable to the health effects of ozone, which include asthma attacks, hospital visits for respiratory problems, and irreversible lung damage. Smog pollution from coal-fired power plants are responsible for 4,200 Emergency Room visits due to respiratory problems and triggers 150.000 asthma attacks in Wisconsin each year. Recent studies link ozone to the onset of asthma as well as to mortality from strokes, a leading cause of death in the U.S.

"Residents of SE Wisconsin face other threats to clean air," said Rosemary Wehnes, Sierra Club conservation organizer. "Plans to expand area freeways in SE Wisconsin will add to our ozone problem as commuters and/or employers relocate further from city centers resulting in more driving."

"Danger in the Air: Unhealthy Levels of Smog in 2002" is the fourth annual compilation of data from the nation's network of more than 1,000 ozone monitors. Key findings include the following:

• 2002 was the worst smog season for which we have data.

• Forty-one states and the District of Columbia exceeded the national health standard for ozone 8,818 times during the 2002 ozone season, including 147 times in Wisconsin.

• Ozone monitors in Wisconsin recorded 13 exceedances falling within the "very unhealthy" range in 2002, the 13th highest in the country.

• The highest exceedances in Wisconsin were at the Chiwaukee monitoring station in Kenosha, Racine, Bayside monitoring station in Milwaukee, and UW-Milwaukee, North. All four monitoring stations recorded violations of the 'very unhealthy' one hour standard.

"Given the high levels of pollution around Milwaukee, why would the state permit more dirty power plants in our community?" asked Giegerich. "It doesn't make sense that the DNR and PSC would put polluters above citizens."

This proposal for new coal-fired power plants in Wisconsin comes as the EPA finalized a rule that essentially repealed the "New Source Review" provision of the Clean Air Act, which requires more than 17,000 of the nation's largest industrial pollution sources, including electric utilities, oil refineries, and chemical plants, to install modern pollution controls when they make upgrades that increase air pollution. The new rule, which was announced August 27th, would allow facilities to avoid installing pollution controls when they replace equipment-even if the upgrade increases pollution-as long as the cost of the replacement did not exceed 20 percent of the cost of what EPA broadly defines as a "process unit." For example, if a coal-fired power plant replaced a boiler whose cost was less than 20 percent of the replacement cost of the entire process unit-the boiler, turbine, generator, and other equipment that turns coal into electricity-the company would not have to control the resulting pollution increases.

In addition, the White House is pushing for a vote in September on its so-called "Clear Skies" bill, which would allow power plants to release more than one and a half times more smog-forming nitrogen oxides into the air from 2010 to 2018 compared to the timely enforcement of current law.

Instead, the report recommends that policymakers:

• Adopt a comprehensive new program to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, and mercury from power plants.

• Abandon regulatory efforts designed to weaken the application of New Source Review, a critical clean air enforcement program that requires industrial facilities to install modern pollution controls when they make other major modifications that increase emissions.

• Ensure timely designation of 8-hour ozone nonattainment areas.

• Oppose efforts to delay or weaken Clean Air Act requirements that apply to ozone nonattainment areas.

• Adopt fuel and emission standards for "non-road" diesel construction, farming, and industrial equipment, as well as trains and ships, to reduce emissions from these vehicles and engines by at least 90 percent.