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Groups say EPA’s Clean Air Act rules should prohibit burning fo
Groups say EPA’s Clean Air Act rules should prohibit burning forests for “green” energy
For Immediate Release
www.energyjustice.net
CONTACT: Attorney Meg Sheehan, 800-729-1363 [email protected]
Dr. William Sammons, 781-799-0014 [email protected]
Cheryl Johncox, 866-648-7337 [email protected]
Denny Haldeman, 423 332 0414 [email protected]>
A national network of health, social justice, community well-being, and forest protection organizations opposed to burning trees and trash for so-called “clean and green” energy, today vowed to challenge U.S. EPA’s November 10, 2010 Clean Air Act guidance as it relates to “biomass.” The group also voiced sharp disagreement with Secretary Vilsack’s support for burning America’s forests for electricity, expressed in a USDA Press Release November 10.
In Massachusetts, Meg Sheehan of Biomass Accountability Project said, “We applaud EPA for moving forward on greenhouse gas regulation despite industry criticism, but the agency’s claim that burning “biomass” could qualify as “best available control technology” for greenhouse gas emissions is contrary to established science. Burning wood biomass for electricity emits 50% more greenhouse gases per unit of energy than coal and is horribly inefficient. The Clean Air Act is supposed to ensure that all Americans have healthy air to breathe. Burning biomass is contrary to that goal,” Sheehan added.
According to pediatrician William Sammons, biomass burning emits the most toxic chemicals known to science, including deadly dioxin, mercury, fine particulate matter, and others. “These emissions cause asthma, heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses in children as well as adults, and should never qualify as the “cleanest” technology under our Clean Air Act,” Sammons said. Over 77,000 doctors, the American Lung Association, Massachusetts Medical Society, North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians and others oppose burning wood biomass on health grounds.
In Ohio, plans to convert coal plants to burning trees threaten both forests and public health, according to Buckeye Forest Council Executive Director Cheryl Johncox. “Ten coal fired power plants in Ohio plan to burn over 25 million tons of wood a year to generate energy – that’s one in ten of our trees which would result in the clearing of Ohio’s forests in a decade,” she said. “Cutting down forests, which absorb greenhouse gases, is not a climate solution but a climate disaster, and it’s happening now, not in the future,” she said. “We urge EPA to ensure that biomass burning is not allowed to be implemented as “best available control technology” for greenhouse gases,” Johncox added.
"It is unconscionable for the USDA and Secretary Vilsack to promote economic and environmental subsidies for an industry which will result in the release of “a carbon bomb” that will last for decades,” said Denny Haldeman, a spokesperson for the Anti- Biomass Incineration Forest Protection Campaign. “The biomass incineration industry is carbon intensive, unsustainable, and dirty, and it cannot exist without massive tax-payer subsidies,” he added. “The “best available control technology” for clean air and reduced carbon emissions is more forests and less burning, not biomass incineration," said Haldeman.
Wood burning creates top cancer risk in Oregon's air, EPA says
Excerpted from the article by Scott Learn, The Oregonian
Pollution from burning wood in stoves, fireplaces and elsewhere is the top cancer risk in Oregon's air, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analysis.
Burning wood and other organic material creates a greater risk than even benzene, a carcinogen belched by cars and trucks in the tens of thousands of tons each year, the analysis indicates.
By contrast, the main toxins from incomplete combustion of burning wood -- a class of chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (you can smell them) -- measure in the low hundreds of tons a year from Oregon's residential sources.
"The PAHs are nasty things," said Ted Palma, an EPA scientist who led the agency's latest National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, released last month.
The EPA assessment, based on 2002 emissions data, ranked Oregon's air high in cancer risk. The state placed third highest in the nation in the number of people -- about 152,000 -- living in census tracts with a cancer risk of 100 in a million, the EPA's benchmark level of concern.
But that's largely because Oregon has done a far better job documenting the generation of wood smoke, Palma said, including surveying residents three times since 2000 to gauge actual wood stove and fireplace use. "If the other 49 states did as good a job as Oregon," Palma said, "Oregon wouldn't be at the top."
Based on the EPA's analysis, other states might want to start paying heed.
Pollution from wood burning helped push 45 census tracts in Clackamas, Jackson, Multnomah and Washington counties above the EPA's overall risk benchmark, accounting for a third or more of the overall air cancer risk in those counties.
Wood burning is particularly popular for home heating in southwest Oregon's Jackson County, the state's surveys indicate. It's less popular in urban counties such as Multnomah but still adds up because of the higher population, close proximity of neighbors, and heavier use of fireplaces, which spew far more pollutants than stoves.
The EPA's risk benchmark is based on 100 cancer incidents among 1 million people exposed continuously over a lifetime.By comparison, the EPA says one out of three Americans -- 330,000 in a million -- will contract cancer during their lives when all causes are taken into account, including smoking and poor nutrition. Also by comparison, the national risk of contracting cancer from radon exposure, also not included in the analysis, is about 2,000 in a million.
Groups say EPA’s Clean Air Act rules should prohibit burning forests for “green” energy
For Immediate Release
www.energyjustice.net
CONTACT: Attorney Meg Sheehan, 800-729-1363 [email protected]
Dr. William Sammons, 781-799-0014 [email protected]
Cheryl Johncox, 866-648-7337 [email protected]
Denny Haldeman, 423 332 0414 [email protected]>
A national network of health, social justice, community well-being, and forest protection organizations opposed to burning trees and trash for so-called “clean and green” energy, today vowed to challenge U.S. EPA’s November 10, 2010 Clean Air Act guidance as it relates to “biomass.” The group also voiced sharp disagreement with Secretary Vilsack’s support for burning America’s forests for electricity, expressed in a USDA Press Release November 10.
In Massachusetts, Meg Sheehan of Biomass Accountability Project said, “We applaud EPA for moving forward on greenhouse gas regulation despite industry criticism, but the agency’s claim that burning “biomass” could qualify as “best available control technology” for greenhouse gas emissions is contrary to established science. Burning wood biomass for electricity emits 50% more greenhouse gases per unit of energy than coal and is horribly inefficient. The Clean Air Act is supposed to ensure that all Americans have healthy air to breathe. Burning biomass is contrary to that goal,” Sheehan added.
According to pediatrician William Sammons, biomass burning emits the most toxic chemicals known to science, including deadly dioxin, mercury, fine particulate matter, and others. “These emissions cause asthma, heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses in children as well as adults, and should never qualify as the “cleanest” technology under our Clean Air Act,” Sammons said. Over 77,000 doctors, the American Lung Association, Massachusetts Medical Society, North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians and others oppose burning wood biomass on health grounds.
In Ohio, plans to convert coal plants to burning trees threaten both forests and public health, according to Buckeye Forest Council Executive Director Cheryl Johncox. “Ten coal fired power plants in Ohio plan to burn over 25 million tons of wood a year to generate energy – that’s one in ten of our trees which would result in the clearing of Ohio’s forests in a decade,” she said. “Cutting down forests, which absorb greenhouse gases, is not a climate solution but a climate disaster, and it’s happening now, not in the future,” she said. “We urge EPA to ensure that biomass burning is not allowed to be implemented as “best available control technology” for greenhouse gases,” Johncox added.
"It is unconscionable for the USDA and Secretary Vilsack to promote economic and environmental subsidies for an industry which will result in the release of “a carbon bomb” that will last for decades,” said Denny Haldeman, a spokesperson for the Anti- Biomass Incineration Forest Protection Campaign. “The biomass incineration industry is carbon intensive, unsustainable, and dirty, and it cannot exist without massive tax-payer subsidies,” he added. “The “best available control technology” for clean air and reduced carbon emissions is more forests and less burning, not biomass incineration," said Haldeman.
Wood burning creates top cancer risk in Oregon's air, EPA says
Excerpted from the article by Scott Learn, The Oregonian
Pollution from burning wood in stoves, fireplaces and elsewhere is the top cancer risk in Oregon's air, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analysis.
Burning wood and other organic material creates a greater risk than even benzene, a carcinogen belched by cars and trucks in the tens of thousands of tons each year, the analysis indicates.
By contrast, the main toxins from incomplete combustion of burning wood -- a class of chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (you can smell them) -- measure in the low hundreds of tons a year from Oregon's residential sources.
"The PAHs are nasty things," said Ted Palma, an EPA scientist who led the agency's latest National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, released last month.
The EPA assessment, based on 2002 emissions data, ranked Oregon's air high in cancer risk. The state placed third highest in the nation in the number of people -- about 152,000 -- living in census tracts with a cancer risk of 100 in a million, the EPA's benchmark level of concern.
But that's largely because Oregon has done a far better job documenting the generation of wood smoke, Palma said, including surveying residents three times since 2000 to gauge actual wood stove and fireplace use. "If the other 49 states did as good a job as Oregon," Palma said, "Oregon wouldn't be at the top."
Based on the EPA's analysis, other states might want to start paying heed.
Pollution from wood burning helped push 45 census tracts in Clackamas, Jackson, Multnomah and Washington counties above the EPA's overall risk benchmark, accounting for a third or more of the overall air cancer risk in those counties.
Wood burning is particularly popular for home heating in southwest Oregon's Jackson County, the state's surveys indicate. It's less popular in urban counties such as Multnomah but still adds up because of the higher population, close proximity of neighbors, and heavier use of fireplaces, which spew far more pollutants than stoves.
The EPA's risk benchmark is based on 100 cancer incidents among 1 million people exposed continuously over a lifetime.By comparison, the EPA says one out of three Americans -- 330,000 in a million -- will contract cancer during their lives when all causes are taken into account, including smoking and poor nutrition. Also by comparison, the national risk of contracting cancer from radon exposure, also not included in the analysis, is about 2,000 in a million.