|
|
 |
This Newstip edited by Curtis Black
Contact:
312-369-7783
| fax 312-369-6404
| curtis@newstips.org
From Pilsen to Copenhagen
Newstip Date: 10-23-2009
Long scored for serious health impacts on residents of Pilsen and Little Village, Chicago's two coal-fired power plants have also emerged as the city's most prominent sources of carbon emissions and climate change.
On Saturday, Octobert 24 at 1 p.m., as part of a worldwide day of action on climate change, local groups will march on the Fisk power plant, 1111 W. Cermak, one of two plants operated by Midwest Generation in Chicago.
As President Obama prepares for a major international climate conference in Copenhagen next month, "We want him to see that people are marching in the streets of his home town asking for him to be a leader in the fight against climate change," said Nicole Granacki of Greenpeace.
"We want to send a message to Obama to say that in his home town, we still have this terrible old 19th-century technology that is literally killing people," said Dorian Breuer of Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization.
The coal plants have been found to cause increased asthma attacks, emergency room visits, and scores of premature deaths annually.
Debra Michaud of the local chapter of the Rainforest Action Network cited climate science pioneer Jim Hansen's call to phase out all coal plants within the next 20 years, and his statement that "coal is the greatest single threat to civilization and to all life on our planet."
For years PERRO and the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization have organized in the communities around Midwest Generation's Fisk and Crawford plants and mainsteam environmental groups have tussled with state and federal authorities to upgrade regulation of the plants, which predate the 1970 Clean Air Act and have been exempt from its more stringent standards.
In the past year RAN and Greenpeace have added grassroots pressure, RAN with a new local volunteer chapter and Greenpeace with a new field office (and Facebook group)here. RAN, which focuses on issues of corporate accountability, has held energy elections at community events and street corners around the city since June, Michaud said.
"Since people don't have any say in the matter" of how energy resources are developed, "we wanted to give them a say," she said. The choice was between continued operation of the coal plants and developing clean energy (clean energy wins by a landslide, she said). But activists learned that "most Chicagoans don't even know that there are coal plants in the city, and that that's why this is one of the worst cities for air quality in the country," Michaud said.
Last month the U.S. EPA filed suit charging Midwest Generation with repeated violations of the Clean Air Act in its six coal plants in and around Chicago. The agency took action after local environmental groups gave notice that they intend to initiate legal action.
Earlier, state regulators negotiated a deal in which the plants will be held to higher emissions standards – but not until 2016 and 2019. Breuer said the urgency of climate change, as well as the continuing health costs borne by local residents, requires quicker action.
He said climate change legislation under consideration in Congress could might into effect by 2012 or 2013, but could easily have little effect on Fisk and Crawford. Under industry pressure the bill has been significantly weakened, he said. And its reliance on a cap-and-trade mechanism and company-wide emissions standards could mean that Midwest Generation could upgrade pollution controls at the company's larger plants in Peoria and Joliet and be allowed to leave the smaller plants in Chicago as they are.
This is true across the country, he said – cap-and-trade would allow older, smaller plants that tend to be in low-income, minority and urban areas to continue polluting. In general, he said, a carbon tax would be far more effective than a cap-and-trade system.
Speakers on Saturday will include Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace USA; Alderman Joe Moore (49); LVEJO youth organizer Myra Galvan, Moises Moreno of PERRO, and Martha Castellon, a mother of two small children living in Little Village.
More Info: ### Related Links:
|
