JEA Gives Taylor County an iPod, While We're Still Listening to an Eight-Track

The title is clearly an analogy. But city-owned JEA is building a cleaner plant with better technology in Taylor County than the plant they operate right here in Jacksonville. That's right, according to Mark McCain, spokesperson for the JEA-developed project, "The plant...will emit a third of the sulfur dioxide and half of the nitrogen dioxide of JEA's Northside Generating Station." He goes on to say, "This is not your grandfather's coal plant." (source: Other People's Property: JEA wants to pollute one of Florida's dirtiest counties, Folio Weekly, 06/19/07)

Why are we stuck with "your grandfather's coal plant"? Why do we get twice the nitrogen dioxide pollution (which has been linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and three times the sulfur dioxide (which causes acid rain) of JEA's plant in Taylor County. We own JEA, it is city-owned! If anything, JEA should clean up our plant in our city first. We should have the best, cleanest technology. We own JEA!

But there's really another issue here. Why is JEA building another dirty, coal-fired plant at all? They are really just exporting our pollution to Taylor County. "There's a lot of sick people in Taylor County," Joy Towles Ezell, a fifth-generation Taylor County resident said, "We don't need another mercury source."

Building a dirty plant in Taylor County that provides no electricity to its residents is a raw deal. We should know, Florida Power & Light does it to us by operating a coal-fired plant in Jacksonville that provides no local electricity. Let's not do it to our own neighbors. But at the same time, let's clean up our own act. If cleaner technology is good for JEA's plant in Taylor County, its good for JEA's plant in Jacksonville.