EPA to Revise Particulate Matter Standards

- by Rachel Smolker

Medical professionals agree that particulates—especially the smaller ones that can enter deep into the lungs—are harmful to human health, so much so that there is, in fact, no “safe level” of exposure. Yet, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is tasked with setting a level for particulate emissions from biomass and other power plants—as if some number of illnesses and deaths is “acceptable.”

Portland Pollution Map

Submitted by Aaron on Mon, 09/03/2012 - 19:30

Neighbors for Clean Air has very neat looking map of suspicious odors and factories. There is also a schools layer which I turned off. The school layer only includes schools in a small square area of the city. It also looks like the factory data is incomplete and does not cover an industrial section in the northern part of town.

Biomass Opponents Silenced by North Carolina Commission

Residents of six counties in North and South Carolina facing massive chicken and pig-manure burning biomass power incinerators, including a man dressed as a chicken [pictured below], were barred from giving testimony at a North Carolina Utilities Commission hearing over biomass electricity requirements on August 28 in Raleigh.

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Gainesville, FL Ratepayers Demand Biomass Refund

Dozens of demonstrators gathered in front of Gainesville City Hall on August 2 to demand that Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) repay $15 million to ratepayers—$194 per household—for high electric rates associated with the construction of the Gainesville Renewable Energy Center (GREC), a 100-megawatt biomass incinerator scheduled to go online in 2013. Protesters accused the utility of overcharging ratepayers to cover future costs of acquiring wood for the incinerator, despite a decrease in the utility’s current fuel costs.