In the Anniston Star opinion piece of April 19, Willard Bowers, vice president for environmental affairs at Alabama Power Company, states that the recent report, ‘Darkening Skies: Trends Toward Increasing Power Plant Emissions,’ by US Public Interest Research Group “played fast and dirty with the numbers...”This is what I know about the numbers: In 1990, Alabama Power’s overall sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions were 399,194 tons. The year 1998 was the highest year of all: 436,246 tons of SO2 emitted. The data for 2000 shows that 372,563 tons of SO2 were emitted. Mr. Bowers mentions the reauthorization of the Clean Air Act in 1990 — this ‘reauthorization’ called for certain limits or allocations of pollution in order to reduce acid rain and protect public health. In 2000, Alabama Power Company was allocated 220,000 tons of SO2 emissions — yet they emitted 372,563 tons — which means that they are either purchasing pollution credits or using them from a system wide ‘bank’ that their parent, Southern Company, holds.
Mr. Bowers states that in the last 12 years they have reduced pollution while at the same time they have “increased our energy production by a dramatic 60 percent to meet the energy needs of our state.” According to Alabama Power’s 2000 annual report — 28 percent of the power they produced was sold outside of their retail base. That is, they are selling to the wholesale market. Because they need to acquire pollution credits to do this, they are exporting power and importing pollution to our state.
Here are a few other facts: Eric Schaeffer, the chief of enforcement at the EPA resigned two months ago because energy industry lobbyists were helping to write proposals to weaken air pollution regulations for older coal-fired power plants. In his resignation letter, he says “EPA’s regulatory impact analyses, reviewed by OMB, quantify health and environmental benefits of $7,300 per ton of SO2 reduced at a cost of less than $1000 per ton. These cases should be supported by anyone who thinks cost-benefit analysis is a serious tool for decision-making, not a political game.”
The 2000 Clear the Air report “Death, Disease and Dirty Power: Mortality and Health Damage Due to Pollution from Power Plants,” shows that in one year air pollution from dirty power plants shortened the lives of over 20,000 people in the U.S. and 1100 in Alabama.
Many, many more people get sick and die from smoking cigarettes — 440,000 per year. There is an element of choice, however, in smoking cigarettes. There is no choice about breathing. And the power company is a monopoly in the area it serves so there is no choice in energy consumption.
If it’s a battle over power or influence, I lose. But if Mr. Bowers and the Alabama Power Company want to engage in a war over facts, I just might win.
Kelley Hall
Alabama Environmental Council
Birmingham
