Kill Coal to Save Lives – The New Republic

In Texas, the NRG-owned WA Parish Generating Station has exacted a grim toll in exchange for the energy and jobs its provided the surrounding communities in Fort Bend County. Public Citizen noted last May that the pollutants emitted by the plant are estimated to be responsible for some 178 premature deaths each year. The promise of jobs dominates national discussion around coal. But the generating stations emissions also cost the community money by way of medical bills. In a column for Chron.com last November, writer Allyn West shared that one of his co-workers spent twice as much each month on asthma medication and air filters as they did on the electricity Parish provides along with the air pollutants. Meanwhile, NRG elected in the spring of 2020 to shut down the plants accompanying carbon capture unitused to limit the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuel operations and long bandied as a symbol of NRGs commitment to clean energywith the company saying that its continued use was uneconomical.

Should the new ruling and incoming regulations from the Biden administration succeed in ushering out coal, theres also a case to be made that the benefits will extend beyond just protecting the surrounding community from breathing-related illnesses. In my home state of North Carolina, one of the defining scandals of the last decade was the 2014 Duke Energy coal ash spill in the Dan River, which filled it with arsenic and selenium. The river provides drinking water throughout North Carolina and Virginia. Looking beyond the spill, the North Carolina Medical Journal found that for the past three decades, scientists have connected living near coal-fired plants with having higher rates of all-cause and premature mortality, increased risk of respiratory disease and lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, poorer child health, and higher infant mortality.

Even after these plants are retired, the risk for contamination will remain high. For years, coal ash has been stored by corporations in ostensibly contained ponds, many unlined, that often lie near natural bodies of water. Following the flooding from Hurricane Florence in 2018, the Neuse River overran the coal ash ponds at a retired coal plant in Goldsboro, causing arsenic levels to spike. During the same storm, the Cape Fear River was also exposed to coal ash after an unlined coal ash pond topped the retaining wall meant to block it from the river.

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Kill Coal to Save Lives - The New Republic