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Harming Our Health
More excerpts from Polluting Power
Hundreds of thousands of tons of pollutants are emitted into the air each year by New England power plants. The clearest health impact arising from these emissions occurs in humans' respiratory systems . Even healthy individuals who work or exercise outdoors are at increased risk from air pollution. The most vulnerable populations are children and people with respiratory diseases, Children are of special concern because their small airways are still developing and they breathe more rapidly; children breathe 50% more air per pound of body weight than adults do. Children also spend more time outdoors and they are less likely to recognize symptoms and decrease their activity levels.
New Health Standards for Smog and Soot
The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate six air pollutants: ground level ozone (smog), particularly matter (soot), nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, and lead. In July 1997, EPA issued new, more protective health standards for smog and soot after reviewing thousands of scientific studies and receiving over 50,000 comments from the public and business community. EPS is concerned enough about ultra-fine soot particles, 2.5 microns or smaller, that it recently approved a new standard to reduce exposure to the very smallest particles that penetrate to the deepest areas of the lungs and cause premature death.
Deadly Soot
Deadly soot, otherwise known as fine particles, constitutes a diverse class of pollutants. They include small, solid particles of soil and soot, gaseous and liquid chemicals and aerosols. Power plants in New England emit hundreds of thousands of tons of soot-causing pollution annually. Recent research findings suggest that the very smallest soot particles penetrate deep into the human lung, where they can cause substantial damage, and even death. These particles are so small that several thousand of them could fit on the period at the end of this sentence. The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that microscopic airborne particles cause 40,000 premature deaths nationally each year. In New England alone, nearly 1500 people's lives are shortened each year due to particulate pollution. New England cities that are home to one of the "Filthy 14" power plants have the highest fine particle level in the region.
But premature death is only the tip of the iceberg of health effects from deadly soot. In total, these effects are extremely serious. Respiratory system failure is the fourth leading cause of death in the nation, taking more lives than auto accidents. People affected with breathing diseases on average die three years earlier than average life expectancy. Exposure to fine particulates worsens these problems.
Ground-Level Ozone (Smog)
Ground-level, ozone, the main component in smog, is one of the nation's most widespread air pollutants. A powerful respiratory irritant, ozone burns through cell walls in the lungs and airways. It causes breathing problems, reduces lung function, aggravates asthma, and increases the severity and incidence of respiratory infections. One out of every three summer days, New Englanders breathe levels of smog that cause increased lung inflammation, coughing, asthma attacks, emergency room visits, and hospitalization.s due to distress.
Otherwise healthy people are also susceptible to the harmful effects of ozone. The elderly, children and people with respiratory diseases are particularly vulnerable to the effects of ozone pollution.
Ozone is a product of a chemical reaction between volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, and sunlight. Traditionally, strategies to reduce ozone pollution have focused on reducing industry and motor vehicle emissions of volatile organic compounds, but recent research shows that controlling nitrogen oxides emissions is, in many instances, more critical to reducing ozone pollution. The primary source of nitrogen oxides emissions is fossil fuel combustion.
Hazardous Air Pollutants
The EPA classifies more than 160 substances as hazardous air pollutants (HAPs or air toxins). An array of health effects may arise from chronic exposure to HAPs, including birth defects, cancer, reproductive problems and poisoning. Plants powered by fossil fuels emit many HAPs, including mercury, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium and nickel.
At this time we know the most about the effects of mercury. Mercury emitted into the air from fossil fuel combustion falls down to Earth in rainfall, accumulating in lakes and rivers and ultimately in fish and in animals that rely on fish as a food source. Mercury harms humans' and animals' nervous systems and can damage the brain in severe cases. Of greatest concern is the danger to prenatal life. Mercury disrupts brain development in fetuses and permanently impairs mental abilities. For humans, a primary route of mercury contamination is through eating contaminated fish. Many state Departments of Health test lakes and rivers for mercury levels and issue fish consumption advisories warning people not to eat, or to carefully limit their consumption of mercury-contaminated fish. Throughout New England, fish consumption advisories related to elevated mercury levels have been issued warning children and women of childbearing age to eat no fish from lakes and streams and advising all others to seriously limit their fish meals.
Unlike other chemicals, only tiny amounts of mercury are needed to contaminate an entire lake; specifically, less than one-third gram of mercury per year is enough to contaminate the fish in a 25-acre lake.
New England's "Filthy 14" power plants contribute over an estimated 1000 pounds of mercury into the environment each year.