#airislife — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #airislife, aggregated by home.social.
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Oh. Too expensive, eh? Maybe all that money we're saving from #DOGE could go towards installing scrubbers or replacing them! (JK! #DOGESucks! #TaxTheRich!)
More Than 60 Power Plants Exempted From Federal #MercuryLimits
More stringent rules were scheduled to be enforced in 2027. Selected plants will now have two more years to comply.
By Dan Gearino
April 16, 2025"Included in the #Trump administration’s order last week to boost the #coal industry was a two-year exemption to a rule that would have forced some of the nation’s most polluting power plants to reduce emissions of mercury and other air toxics.
"The ramifications of this exemption are beginning to sink in for people across the country who saw the mercury rule, updated and enhanced last year by the Biden administration, as a crucial part of reducing the harm of these power plants.
"The Environmental Protection Agency [#EPA] published a list of 47 plant owners and more than 60 plants that now have additional time to meet mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) that were set to become more stringent in 2027.
"The actions are part of a broader agenda in which the Trump administration aims to use executive orders to cut environmental regulations and increase electricity generation, mainly from #FossilFuels.
" 'The Trump administration has created an illegal special exemption by which polluters can go to the president and request a ‘get out of jail free’ card when it comes to the Clean Air Act,' said Howard Learner, CEO and executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, a Chicago-based advocacy group that works throughout the Midwest. 'That’s legally irresponsible; it’s bad policy, and it will really harm people as a result of more pollution.'
"The exempted plants are in 23 states and include some of the country’s leading #polluters, such as the #JamesHMillerPlant in #Alabama, owned by Southern Co., and the #LabadiePlant in #Missouri, owned by #AmerenCorp.
"Many of the plants are old, such as the #TennesseeValleyAuthority’s #ShawneePlant in #Kentucky, whose oldest generating unit began operating in 1953.
"A few are relatively new, such as the #DryForkStation in #Wyoming, which opened in 2011 and is owned by #BasinElectric Power Cooperative.
"The list consists mostly of #CoalPlants, but also includes a few properties that burn #gas or #petroleum."
Read more:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16042025/power-plants-exempted-from-federal-mercury-limits/Archived version:
https://archive.ph/uocBf#BadDOGE #AirIsLife #MercuryPoisoning
#ToxicAir #WaterIsLife #DirtyCoal #CoalMining #USPol #Pollution -
#Arizona’s #ApacheGeneratingStation is one of 66 #CoalPlants to get #EPA exemption from Biden-era #toxic #AirPollution caps
Sammy Travis / Cronkite News
April 21, 2025"WASHINGTON — The Apache Generating Station, one of the last remaining power plants in Arizona that use coal, is among 66 power plants nationwide granted exemptions by the Trump administration from updated standards on mercury, arsenic, lead and other toxic pollutants.
Environmentalists worry that allowing plants to avoid compliance with the new standards could harm air quality, public health and the environment.
Power companies have been phasing out coal plants in Arizona for years. The last is targeted for closure in 2032, when federal rules kick in that require 90% capture of carbon emissions.
But Arizona’s intense summer heat puts a strain on the supply of electricity, and power companies have long turned to older, dirtier technology when demand peaks.
At issue are Environmental Protection Agency standards known as the MATS rule, part of the Clean Air Act, which President Richard Nixon signed in 1970. Congress updated it in 1977 and 1990.
The Apache Generating Station’s waiver allows its owner and operator, Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, to comply with the 2012 version of the federal standards rather than stricter caps issued by the EPA in April 2024.
The MATS rule was originally aimed at coal-burning plants. The EPA has expanded it to apply to natural gas; Apache, a 408-megawatt plant about 80 miles east of Tucson, uses both.
Natural gas generates far less toxic material and particulate matter than coal. But it does create carbon dioxide, and the Biden administration also issued rules aimed at curbing those greenhouse emissions.
[Next section talks about how UPGRADES ARE EXPENSIVE! THEN HAVE BILLIONAIRES PAY FOR THEM! OR REPLACEMENT ENERGY SOURCES!]
"President Donald Trump signed an order shortly after taking office that rolled back Biden-era EPA regulations. In April, he signed multiple executive orders promoting coal.
"His cost-cutting effort, led by billionaire Elon Musk, has also aggressively curtailed the EPA’s staff and mission."
#BadDOGE #AirIsLife #MercuryPoisoning #ToxicAir #WaterIsLife #DirtyCoal #CoalMining #USPol
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High tide for #Holtec
#Tritium dumped into #CapeCodBay will wash back onto community shores, says a new report
"The permanently closed Pilgrim nuclear power plant is now owned by Holtec, which wants to dump #RadioactiveWastewater into Cape Cod Bay. While waiting for a permit, so far denied, the company is quietly venting #tritium into the air."
by Linda Pentz Gunter, Posted on December 29, 2024
"Holtec, the company that has purchased a number of permanently closed #nuclear reactors in order to decommission them, has encountered yet another obstacle to its '#dilution is the solution to pollution' plans.
"One of the reactor sites Holtec has taken over is #PilgrimNuclearPlant in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Cape Cod Bay, which closed permanently in 2019. Holtec’s not-so-little problem there is what do with what started out as at least 1.1 million gallons of radioactively contaminated #wastewater stored at the site.
"The company first suggested it would simply release the wastewater into Cape Cod Bay, assuring residents and the immediately alarmed fishing community not to worry because (a) the wastewater isn’t dangerous anyway (b) everyone does this all the time at reactor sites and no one has gotten sick so far and (c) it would quickly disperse into the wider ocean. Holtec chose this disposal method for one reason alone: it is the cheapest.
"The proposal was vigorously fought by citizens, the state, and powerful Massachusetts Democrat, Senator Ed Markey. The state of Massachusetts effectively banned the discharge option, a decision Holtec is contesting.
"That Final Determination to Deny Application to Modify a Massachusetts Permit to Discharge Pollutants to Surface Waters was issued by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection [#MassDEP] Division of Watershed Management on July 18, 2024. A month later, Holtec launched its appeal to reverse the decision, something that could take months or longer to find its way to court.
"In the meantime, help has come from a new quarter in the form of an in-depth study by the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution [#WHOI], also, as it happens, based on the Massachusetts shoreline, near Falmouth.
"The study — Model-Based Study of Near-Surface Transport in and around Cape Cod Bay, Its Seasonal Variability, and Response to Wind — found that contrary to Holtec’s claims, the wastewater would not immediately disperse into the ocean, but would linger potentially for months, and wash up on the shores of area communities.
“'We found virtually no out-of-the-Bay transport in winter and fall and slightly larger, but still low, probability of some of the plume exiting the Bay in spring and summer,' said Woods Hole study leader and physical oceanographer, Irina Rypina.
"The radioactively contaminated wastewater stored at Pilgrim is contaminated with what Holtec and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health have described as 'four gamma emitters — #Manganese54, #Cobalt60, #Zinc65 and #Cesium137 along with #Tritium, a beta radiation emitter'.
"While the Woods Hole Study did not look at the health outcomes of releasing the radioactive water into Cape Cod Bay — only at the plume pathway — there are plenty of data that demonstrate the harmful effects of these #radioisotopes on human health, especially women and children.
"After acquiring the Pilgrim reactor, Holtec’s President and CEO, Kris Singh, assured surrounding communities that,
'the decommissioning of Pilgrim will replicate the superb record of public health and safety and environmental protection that typified the plant’s 47 years of operations.'But since that acquisition, Markey observed, 'Holtec has fallen woefully short on this commitment.' He noted of the Woods Hole report that 'In light of these recent findings, I urge Holtec to develop a wastewater discharge plan that is informed and guided by scientific fact and community input.'
"Long-time #PilgrimWatch activist, #MaryLampert, welcomed the report’s initial findings and said that 'Holtec dumping Pilgrim’s radiological and chemically #contaminated wastewater into semi-enclosed CapeCod Bay is harmful to human health, the environment, and our marine economy.'
"In a handbook explaining Pilgrim’s decommissioning process on the Pilgrim Watch website, the authors note that 'Cape Cod Bay, #PlymouthBay, #DuxburyBay, and #KingstonBay are all protected #OceanSanctuaries. Cape Cod Bay is a critical habitat for right whales and other endangered or special species. Dumping this #radioactive and chemically contaminated wastewater into them would cause incalculable economic damage and would harm both the environment and public health.'
"Absent a liquid discharge permit, Holtec’s preferred solution since has been to quietly evaporate the wastewater into the air. It has done this, as revealed during a Pilgrim Nuclear Decommissioning Citizen Advisory Panel meeting, by installing submerged electric heaters to increase the plant’s ambient temperature, ostensibly in order to improve worker comfort and expedite the drying of plant components.
"But, as Markey noted in an April 30, 2024 letter to Singh, the consequence of installing the heaters in that location 'is an increased rate of wastewater evaporation above the pace at which it occurs naturally.' That 1.1 million gallons is now down to 880,000 gallons remain, according to Holtec’s own reports.
"As Lampert points out, 'Meteorology studies show 60% of winds blow offshore,' which means at least some of that evaporated wastewater is going to fall into the bay anyway.
"Under Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules, Holtec has four disposal options: liquid discharge, evaporation, storage onsite, and shipping to a licensed facility. None of them are good solutions.
"In August, Holtec filed an appeal against the state’s ban on liquid radioactive discharges, in part claiming that the decision on whether or not to allow the discharge falls under federal not state jurisdiction.
"This, argue some opponents of Holtec’s discharge plans, is a stall and a distraction while it quietly gets on with the gradual evaporation of all the wastewater.
"'They’re using the appeal to buy themselves time,' Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, told radio station WBUR. 'And what they buy themselves, with time, is the ability to continue to induce evaporation of the wastewater, so that ultimately it’s gone, at minimal cost to them.'
"Lampert agrees. 'Holtec can evaporate all the water to meet its schedule to dismantle the reactor building,' she said.
"In October, Lampert, along with other citizens representing the fishing, environmental, real estate and medical communities traveled to Boston to meet with staff in Massachusetts Governor Mary Healy’s office to demand that Healy’s administration call a halt to the evaporation.
"'There are laws on the books already that prohibit #AirbornePollution,' Diane Turco of #CapeDownwinders told the local NPR station after the Boston meeting. “And we’re asking our governor to immediately enforce those laws… She’s been very strong about no dumping in the bay. And we see this as a parallel assault on our communities,' Turco said.
"So far the governor has not taken action."
https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/12/29/high-tide-for-holtec/
#HoltecLies #PilgrimNuclear #NuclearPowerCorruptionAndLies #NoNukes #RethinkNotRestart #NoRadioactiveDumping #WaterIsLife #AirIsLife #RadioactiveWaterDumping #NewEngland #BeyondNuclearInternational