Massachusetts’ commitment to a new clean energy economy has been welcome news both economically and environmentally. There’s an awful lot to like about reversing the export of billions of dollars sent outside Massachusetts and the country each year to buy dirty fossil fuel energy that harms our health, increases our health care expenses and has substantial impacts on our environment, economy, jobs and national security. No question, there’s tremendous potential for investing in clean homegrown energy right here in Massachusetts, in a win for the economy and the environment. But if we’re truly going to be successful in building a new clean energy economy, we need to pay attention to the “clean” element of that equation. And if our burgeoning clean energy revolution is to be successful, it absolutely cannot leave behind the Massachusetts communities that long have borne the brunt of our dependence on dirty energy.

A true clean energy economy ought to mean cleaner air for everyone. It’s a ‘no-brainah’ (as they say in these parts), right?  Apparently Massachusetts DEP doesn’t think so. In a deeply troubling decision issued on September 11, Massachusetts DEP Commissioner Ken Kimmell upheld an air pollution permit for a 35 Megawatt (MW) wood-burning power plant that is proposed to be built at Palmer Paving, smack in the midst of a state and federally designated environmental justice community in Springfield. In taking this action, DEP gave the green light to a facility that will annually release dozens of tons of damaging fine particulates and hazardous air pollutants, as well as hundreds of thousands of tons of harmful global warming pollution, in an area documented by the MA Department of Public Health to have significantly worse air quality and markedly higher rates of respiratory illness than the state average. What’s up with that?!  Has the DEP Commissioner already forgotten his own “tweets” this summer that alerted the public to unhealthy air quality in central Massachusetts, even before the PRE power plant adds new air pollution to the mix?

While we’re pleased that DEP Commissioner Kimmell reversed the agency’s earlier findings on standing, allowing CLF, Arise for Social Justice, Toxics Action Center and our “Ten Residents Group” partners to challenge Palmer Renewable Energy’s (PRE) air permit, the decision to uphold the permit reflects a sorry abdication of DEP’s obligation to protect against damaging air pollution.  Among other troubling flaws:

•  DEP’s Final Decision lays out burdensome new requirements for “Ten Citizens” groups seeking to participate in air permitting proceedings, forcing concerned residents to invoke trial-like proceedings at the public comment stage to protect their rights even before DEP’s air permitting decisions are known;

• In upholding the PRE air pollution permit, DEP relies on highly questionable testimony of the power plant developer’s expert witness whose unorthodox views on the health impacts of fine particulate matter were discredited recently by at least one federal court on the basis that the witness’ unconventional views cast him as an outlier in his field;

• Despite the hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gas emissions the PRE wood-burning power plant would release each year, DEP’s Final Decision explicitly – and erroneously – suggests that there is an open question regarding whether the decision must comply with the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act, even though the Act’s language is unequivocally clear that DEP must comply.

At the end of the day, I’m reminded of the sage words of a 10 year old girl with asthma who hand-wrote her pithy letter to DEP opposing the PRE power plant: “We deserve clean air… It’s not fair!!!!” Well said.

So, we will work to hold DEP accountable for reducing, not increasing, air pollution and respecting the right to meaningful public participation. And we will continue to cheer the local officials in Springfield who are refusing to allow the PRE power plant to cut corners and have revoked all local permits for project.

Image courtesy of dsearls @ flickr. Creative Commons.

While the job of cleaning up New England’s power plants is not complete, we have made a good amount of progress: we have reduced emissions from the plants that are still running and are moving towards closure of some of the oldest, dirtiest and most obsolete plants, like the Salem Harbor Power Plant.

But as Ken Kimmell, the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, noted in this radio story, his department still has to advise people not to eat fish caught in streams and lakes: “The mercury levels in the fish are still too high for it to be safe to eat and that’s because we’re still receiving an awful lot of mercury from upwind power plants,” Kimmell says.  The Commissioner is making the essential point here – we are making progress here at home but if we want to truly end the threat of neurotoxic mercury in fish (and the other health effects of power plant pollution) we need to look towards national efforts.

The path forward is clear.  We need to maintain pressure on the sources of pollution here in our region, like the the Mount Tom power plant on the Connecticut River in Massachusetts, while making a strong, affirmative move towards clean energy resources like energy efficiency, wind power, solar, and smart electric storage.

Meanwhile we need for the federal government to stand firm and implement long overdue rules to reduce pollution from the power plants to our west.  The Mercury and Air Toxic Rules that EPA is releasing will prevent hundreds of thousands of illnesses (like asthma attacks) and up to 17,000 deaths each year.  The effect of these regulations will be overwhelmingly positive. For instance, every dollar spent on power plant emissions reductions yields $5 to $13 in health benefits.

We all deserve to breathe easier, our children deserve to be free from the dangerous neurotoxic effects of mercury in our air, and our communities deserve the reduced health care costs and increased job opportunities that will flow as we build a new clean energy economy.