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Tag: health

  • Facts Needed on Penrose, NC Biomass Proposal

    - by Rick and Jean­nie Falknor Tran­syl­va­nia Coun­ty res­i­dents deserve all the facts about the pro­posed bio­fu­el plant at the air­port site in Pen­rose [North Car­oli­na], espe­cial­ly the neg­a­tive impacts such a busi­ness can have on our county. First, bio­mass pow­er gen­er­a­tion is a dirty indus­try. Accord­ing to a Wall Street Jour­nal-cit­ed study con­duct­ed in ear­ly…

  • Biomass Moratorium for Brevard County, North Carolina

    Bio­mass Mora­to­ri­um for Bre­vard Coun­ty, North Carolina - by Kim­ber­ly King, August 2, 2013. Source: WLOS Mon­day night at the Bre­vard coun­ty cour­t­house the gallery broke in in rau­cous applause after Tran­syl­va­nia Com­mis­sion­ers vot­ed for a one-year mora­to­ri­um that effec­tive­ly stopped plans for a Bio­mass plant on pri­vate prop­er­ty in Pen­rose at the airport.  “They lis­tened to…

  • Biomass Moratorium Called for in Oregon

    - by Save Our Rur­al Oregon Due to the Clean Air Act vio­la­tions both Kla­math Falls and Lake­view, Ore­gon have expe­ri­enced this win­ter, Save Our Rur­al Ore­gon is request­ing an emer­gency mora­to­ri­um on pro­posed bio­mass and bio­fu­els projects in both communities. Let­ters have been for­ward­ed to the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency and Ore­gon Gov­er­nor John Kitzhaber,…

  • Biomass Battle Casts Spotlight on Environmental Justice

    Some­times what seems like defeat in the short term can actu­al­ly turn out to be vic­to­ry in the long run. One such case involves the oppo­si­tion to the con­struc­tion of Seneca Sawmill’s bio­mass pow­er incin­er­a­tor in Eugene, Ore­gon. While the facil­i­ty fired up its smoke­stacks for the first time in 2011, the effort to edu­cate…

  • Biomass Health Study a Smokescreen?

    A study on the health risks from a bio­mass pow­er incin­er­a­tor pro­posed for Plac­er Coun­ty, Cal­i­for­nia con­tains “sev­er­al fal­lac­i­es,” accord­ing to Nor­ma Kreilein, MD, a Fel­low of the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics. A Health Impact Assess­ment of the Pro­posed Cab­in Creek Bio­mass Ener­gy Facil­i­ty in Plac­er Coun­ty, Cal­i­for­nia claims that the con­struc­tion of the 2.2 megawatt Cab­in Creek…

  • EPA Sued for Ignoring Paper Mill CO2 Emissions

    Mas­sive emis­sions of green­house gas­es in the form of car­bon diox­ide make bio­mass and coal burn­ing facil­i­ties major con­trib­u­tors to cli­mate change. Yet one large source of cli­mate pol­lu­tion that’s been fly­ing under the radar has been pulp and paper mills—until now. Inter­na­tion­al Paper’s Ticon­dero­ga Mill , New York (pho­to: itsgettinghotinhere.org)  A law­suit against the US Envi­ron­men­tal…

  • Biomass Profiteering Trumps Children’s Health in Rothschild, Wisconsin

    For many peo­ple, noth­ing typ­i­fies the Amer­i­can Dream more than buy­ing a house in a small town to start a fam­i­ly. Five years ago school teacher Robert Hugh­es and his wife pur­chased a home in Roth­schild, Wis­con­sin, pop­u­la­tion 5,000 and had two chil­dren, now three years and three months old. Today, the Hugh­es’ dream is…

  • Medical Doctors Brief Congress on Biomass Energy Health Hazards

    Three med­ical doc­tors and a sci­en­tist pre­sent­ed the first-ever Con­gres­sion­al brief­ing on the health haz­ards of bio­mass incin­er­a­tion in the U.S. Con­gress in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. on Sep­tem­ber 25, 2012. The brief­ing was arranged and spon­sored by Save Amer­i­ca’s Forests and the pre­sen­ta­tions can be viewed online here. Pedi­a­tri­cians William Sam­mons, M.D., of Mass­a­chu­setts and Nor­ma Kreilein, M.D., of…

  • Obama and Romney Unite on Destructive Bioenergy Policy

    Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and Repub­li­can Par­ty Nom­i­nee Mitt Rom­ney may not see eye to eye on issues like same-sex mar­riage, immi­gra­tion, or abor­tion, but when it comes to the can­di­dates’ harm­ful stances on bio­mass ener­gy and bio­fu­els, the two might as well be run­ning on the same ticket. Gov­er­nor Mitt Romney  Tech­ni­cal­ly, Romney’s white paper on ener­gy pol­i­cy, The…

  • 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…