Don't Let the Sun Go Down On a Good Idea

As the mercury keeps shooting out of JEA's coal-fired plant, you have to ask, as residents in the Sunshine State, why don't we have more clean, steady-rate inducing solar power? JEA has some solar generation, and it seems to be successful...

According to Joy Ezell from TRUE - Taylor Residents United for the Environment, "Did you know that JEA has to have a solar plant to power 26 schools and city hall because of a lawsuit settlement with Sierra Club? The solar plant is operational - and is featured in the documentary 'KilowattOurs' - with Susan Hughes, spokesperson for JEA, practically clicking her heels about how wonderful it is and how great it's working. They say they power City Hall and 26 JAX schools with solar power - Florida
Sierra Club negotiated this plan with JEA after the Northside Generating Station's terrible problems with mercury forced the shut down of the first power plant, then they cranked up the new one."

So why not more solar power? Every killowatt generated by solar power means less coal needs to be burned means less mercury fouling our fair city.

Is Jacksonville more backwards than Fayetteville, Arkansas?

Fayetteville, Arkansas has a sustainability director and Jacksonville does not! Fayetteville, Arkansas!!! What happened to "The Bold New City of the South"? According to Newsweek, ("Mayors Take the Lead"), 435 mayors, Republican and Democratic, in Red States and Blue, from the crunchy coasts to the conservative heartland, have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Jacksonville has not. Forget about "Boldly going where no man has gone before." Jacksonville won't even boldly go where many others have been.

By signing on, these mayors are saving their cities money! For example, by converting stoplights from incandescent bulbs to LEDs that use 80% less energy and last six to 10 times longer, Arlington, Texas, expects a projected windfall of more than $250,000 a year. New York City will realize savings of $6.3 million a year once the initial investment is paid off. That's your tax money we could be saving.

Of course, by making this move, we'd be saving energy too. Which hopefully means less petroleum coke would have to be burned, and therefore less toxic mercury would foul our city.

A reminder: why we need to lower mercury emissions...

Mercury Falling has been going on for a while now, covering a range of topics. So as not to lose sight of our original goal, urge JEA to agree to lower mercury emissions by the same amount it raises rates, let's take a look again at why we must lower Jacksonville's mercury emissions...

JEA had the highest mercury emissions (1,037 pounds) in the state in 2005, according to the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory. In 2003, JEA's St. Johns River Power Park and Northside Generating Station were the largest power plant mercury polluters in Florida. Duval County topped the list of Florida counties with the highest level of power plant mercury emissions, 599 pounds - or 20% percent of the state's total power plant mercury emissions. In Florida, power plants emitted 2,982 pounds of mercury in 2003. Florida ranked at 11th in the nation for the highest levels of power plant mercury emissions. 91% of all reported mercury air emissions in Florida were from power plants. Studies show that mercury bioaccumulates and biomagnifies more quickly in wetlands areas than in other areas. JEA's plants are in a wetlands area, a fact.

Much of the mercury (a harmful bio-accumulative neurotoxin) in Florid's humid climate tends to fall in the region nearest the the coal plant. JEA's plants emit a constant rain of mercury onto our region. Currently every body of water, inshore and offshore, is under fish consumption warnings for mercury. Health impacts are most notable in the old and the young, especially fetuses. Autism, IQ loss and other developmental disabilities have been linked to mercury exposure and are reaching epidemic levels.

Please, take just two minutes RIGHT NOW, and write the mayor and City Council and urge them to get JEA to lower mercury emissions by the same amount it raises rates.

Jacksonville leads the state in toxic mercury emissions thanks to JEA. Is JEA's solution to build an even dirtier plant in Taylor County?

As Mercury Falling has said, Jacksonville has the dubious distinction of emitting more toxic mercury than any other county in the state. Mercury Falling's solution to drop this heinous distinction is to emit less mercury. Is JEA's solution simply to make another Florida county even dirtier than its make Duval?

And is this what is behind our continous rate increases? According to Joy Ezell from Hope for Clean Water, "Six rate increases over the past four years - to build up money to build the Taylor Emphysema Center." That is Joy's name for JEA's plan to build "an 800 megawatt pulverized coal fired power plant in Perry, in Taylor county, FL - the Taylor Energy Center - which will be a larger - (three 800 megawatt units) mercury emitter than Jacksonville's Northside generating coal plant. We understand that there have been no articles or letters to the editor of the Jacksonville paper, so folks over there don't know what JEA is up to...."

Is this where the money from our rate increases is going to? According to Taylor County local Gale Dickert, "JEA is over here offering $10,000 grants to our community for "environmental education" and "outdoor recreation", etc. while folks in Jax are paying through the teeth for their electricity -- and JEA has imposed a 20% increase on their backs to cover their expenses for this coal plant ---and the grants they are giving away to groups in Perry."

Who will lead us?

Well, so far we've seen no real leadership on the city or state level to clean up mercury emissions. What can we expect on the national level?

According to National Resources Defense Council Senior Attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "They (the Bush Administration) plan to treat mercury pollution from power plants as non-hazardous even though mercury is one of the world's most dangerous substances. Why? So that those plants can keep pumping mercury into our air., where it rains down on lakes and oceans and winds up in the fish we eat."

For more information on NRDC, visit www.nrdc.org

The only thing worse than burning coal is burning tax money

According to TIME magazine, cities can save money and energy (and, thus, in Jacksonville's case, emit less toxic mercury into our community) by lighting public places with LEDs. LEDs use 40% electricity than the high-pressure sodium bulbs they replace and can go five or more years without upkeep, while traditional bulbs must be replaced every 18 moths. Raleigh has already taken a step in this direction, as has Times Square, stadiums, and airports. Why hasn't Jacksonville?

As TIME suggests, "If your city is still burning tax money on old lights, ask the mayor why." You can email Mayor Peyton at jpeyton@coj.net

What you don't know can hurt you

Florida ranks fifth-highest in nation for cancer causing chemical releases, so says a recent report from Environment Florida on the latest federal Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). Environment Florida is an important environmental group affiliated with FL Public Interest Research Group (FL PIRG).

If that's not bad enough, the EPA might be working to keep this data secret in the future, according to Environmental Florida. The TRI report comes out once a year, however, EPA wants to stop making this report public. EPA doesn't want the public to know how toxic our environment has become, as they've stripped the rules on emissions to help new coal plants go on line, the group said.

If EPA keeps these numbers hidden, how will we know how much mercury emissions JEA is spewing? Florida is famous for government in the sunshine, this sounds like government in the Dark Ages.

To see what toxins Jacksonville is releasing, click here. (Use zip code 32206 for Jacksonville, or your local ZIP Code. And you can learn more about this group at EnvironmentFlorida.org

JEA: No Proficiency in Efficiency?

JEA and partners (Disney, FMPA --in all some 29 cities ) want to build an 800 megawatt pulverized coal plant in the Taylor County town of Perry, Florida. This plant is shown on graphs in JEA ads as most similar to JEA's Northside Plant (one of two JEA coal plants that spew the highest mercury emissions in FL).

It is outrageous for JEA, the biggest mercury polluter in FL to brag about what they are doing in "green energy" when they are going all the way across the state to pollute a county where the citizens have been refused a vote on this coal plant!

If JEA would do what has been done in California with conservation and efficiency, they would not need another coal plant. When an efficiency expert, invited by NRDC's Susan Glickman, gave a presentation at a JEA meeting I attended last spring (the meeting was set up by NRDC), the efficiency expert showed on a graph that, of all the major utilities in the U.S., JEA ranks at the BOTTOM of the graph for efficiency. They were one of the utilities that had done the least to help customers learn how to save on their electric bills. All they could say, in response, was that, well, they make money selling power -- and well, they had done a few things. Not hardly anything, judging from that graph!! The sad thing is that the ones who suffer the most from JEA's focus on profit are the poor, who often have their power turned off because they can't pay utility bills.

Instead of emphasizing demand side reductions (DSM) and conservation, JEA emphasizes dirty coal plants -- and they are going outside Duval to do it, to pollute our part of Florida that is already hurting. Obviously, JEA is keeping their own customers in the dark about their plans. Any big news stories about the proposed Taylor County coal plant in your Times Union?

All the cities partnering in this plant will be hurt also by the mercury, as the air knows no bounds!! No one deserves this. Especially when there are plenty of clean options and better ones becoming available.

I am sure JEA customers don't want to be penalized on their utility bills just so JEA can build more polluting coal plants which will be heavily fined for all their carbon emissions for generations, resulting in higher and higher utility bills. Jacksonville customers will pay the penalties for JEA's bad energy decisions.

I am also sure Jacksonville citizens would be angry if they knew JEA is advertising they want to give money away in the form of grants to groups in Perry who are doing "environmental education" while JEA is working as hard as they can to do more harm to our environment. And, that JEA is calling themselves in Perry ads, our "Good Neighbor." They call the grants, "Good Neighbor" grants. Just the kind of neighbors you never hope to have, I might add.

Why am I and other concerned citizens giving so much of our time to advocate against coal plants? Because mercury and other toxics from coal plants impair our children, and cause cancer and heart disease and premature death in people of all ages. That is well documented. As a former educator, my friends and I have seen the high percentage of children in Taylor County already impaired enough to need special ed. (over 600 children in our small pop of only 19,000). The main reason Taylor County has not grown is because of pollution. This county needs clean industry, not more pollution!

The Buckeye paper mill here emits more lead than any other plant in Florida and thousands of tons of SO2 and other toxics per year. Lead, like mercury, is a very potent neurotoxin that causes impairments and mental retardation and learning disabilities in children. In Georgia, according to EPA estimates, at least 20,000 Georgia school children have learning disabilities,
mental retardation, etc. due to the heavy mercury emissions from Georgia coal plants (from Atlanta Constitution last yr.). Yet, that same EPA has done nothing but make it easier for power plants to release mercury. The article in the Constitution says that GA is considering taking steps to regulate mercury within their own state. Florida should do the same.

In Jacksonville, the Times Union, Sept 13, 2005, stated that JEA is facing lawsuits from 52 children who have mercury poisoning and autism that lived near JEA coal plants. Sulfur
dioxide, SO2, NOx, mercury and other toxics emitted by paper mills and coal plants cause cancer, respiratory problems and premature deaths.

The answer to this problem is to call a moratorium on coal plants. Pulverized coal plants like JEA builds cannot ever be retrofitted to capture and sequester carbon emissions, and in today's world with problem of rapidly increasing climate change and so many thousands of people dying from effects of pollution, it is immoral to build new coal plants and keep spewing billions of tons of CO2 and other toxics into the atmosphere. One 800 MW coal plant like JEA wants would spew around seven million TONS of carbon per yr. Multiply that times 50-60 yrs, the life span of a dirty coal plant.

People who are concerned -- and I would hope that the people of Jacksonville would be -- should call JEA and ask them to be responsible stewards of the environment. Tell them to stop building dirty pulverized coal plants and to stop exporting their pollution to other cities. Ask them to follow the Golden Rule and not do to others what they would not do to their own families and city.

Concerned citizens should call Gov. Charlie Crist or email him at Charlie.Crist@myflorida.com. Our Governor says that he is is "very unexcited about coal plants." He understands the threat global warming poses for the vulnerable state of Florida. Tell him you share his concerns about coal and our polluted environment and that you want him to call a moratorium on any new coal plants -- and that you want a strong commission in place of climate scientists, and others, including laymen with expertise in this area like the Big Bend Climate Action Team to solve Florida's very serious pollution problems (when you see the Toxic Release Inventory, it will be clear what a terrible problem FL has.)

Gale Dickert
Perry, Taylor County, Florida

From Ed Begley, Jr.

In a recent post, "Solar Power to the People," Mercury Falling discussed CitizenRe -- an effort to sell solar power to customers at the same price they currently pay for dirty power (like JEA's coal plant). On top of that, the rates would be guaranteed to stay steady for the next 25 years. Sounds like a great way to reduce our state-leading mercury emissions, right?

Well, groSolar CEO Jeff Wolfe rained on this parade when he posted a comment to Mercury Falling saying CitizenRe is a lot of promises with no proof.

To get CitizenRe's side of the story, Mercury Falling asked CitizenRe spokesman his thoughts on this issue. Here is what Ed Begley, Jr. had to say...

As of today, April 4th, Jeff Wolfe is correct...there is no proof of what Citizenre proposes.

BUT....I have every reason to believe that there will be a major announcement in the next 2 weeks that will change all that.

Stay tuned!

Ed

(photo by Alan Light)

Pig sky country

A slob who makes a huge mess everywhere he goes is known as a pig. As a city, a state, and a nation, are we a pig when it comes to the air we breathe?

Consider this, from the Florida Sierra Club's "The Pelican"...
"Even today in 2006, over half of America's electricity is generated from coal-fired plants. Consequentially, we are being exposed to soot, smog, acid rain, and dangerous toxins such as mercury, which threaten people and wildlife alike. Bush's 'Clear Skies' plan will allow 520% more mercury pollution by 2010, not to mention delaying the enforcement of public health standards for smog and soot until the end of 2015." To get involved with the Sierra Club to work for cleaner air, visit www.sierraclub.org.

So it would seem the simple option would be to move to cleaner, non-coal ways of generating electricity. Well, that is not what Florida is doing. The Florida House Energy Committee recently a bill to promote coal-fired power plants. The bill gives tax breaks to “integrated gasification combined cycle” – or IGCC – coal plants. According to "The Pelican"...
"The IGCC plants still burn coal and release mercury and carbon. Since all Florida IGCC plants are still exempt from sequestration technology, the amount of mercury and carbon pollution cannot be tolerated."

Click here to follow state legislative bill activity or visit flsenate.gov or myfloridahouse.gov. To track Governor Charlie Crist's budget items and general communications, visit myflorida.com or flgov.com.

Reduce, Reuse, Recharge

While Mercury Falling focuses on our city's state-leading mercury emissions (almost all of which come from JEA in our city), mercury contamination does come from other places as well. So while urging JEA to lower its mercury emissions is vitally important to the health of our city, another way you can act is by using rechargeable batteries. According to Outdoor magazine...

"They're a better investment, and keep more mercury and cadmium out of landfills and groundwater."

As a resident of Jax, you are a shareholder in JEA. What kind of return are you getting?

Accord to April's Fast Company magazine, at public utility PG&E..."More than 50% of electricity delivered to customers is generated without carbon emissions. Over three decades, energy-efficiency programs have helped prevent construction of 25 new power plants." In addition, PG&E is "...targeting 20% renewable energy by 2010."

The article was titled, "Measured Progress...Investors are figuring it out: Short-term numbers don't tell the whole story. How to think about valuing the invaluable."

PG&E is a private company, and delivers an 11.4% return on equity to its shareholders. JEA is a city-owned utility, making every resident of Jacksonville a shareholder. So ask yourself...what type of return are you getting from JEA? What are you actually getting from all these higher rates? That why Mercury Falling is calling for JEA to lower mercury emissions by the same amount it raises rates. Let's get some kind of return on our investment.