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."