- 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.”
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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(Source: Mary Anderson, Courier-Tribune)
A 36 megawatt biomass incinerator that would have burned poultry feces is no longer being considered for Biscoe, North Carolina, to the relief of Montgomery and Moore County residents and grassroots community groups, such as Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL), which opposed the project.
- by Debbie Martinez, RN, Gainesville, Florida
As a registered nurse I find it alarming that Alachua County’s huge medical community has remained silent on dangerous smokestack emissions as more research now demonstrates that air pollution from the city’s planned biomass incinerator will pose a significant health risk to adults, children and the unborn within a 200 mile radius of GRU’s Deerhaven site.
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