In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697 (2022), which allowed West Virginia to keep polluting our air, the EPA has come up with a new set of rules for power plants. It takes a more traditional time tested to setting emission limits based on pollution controls available to individual power plants.
It also addresses pollution directly caused by coal ash, such as the 2014 spill that occurred in North Carolina, killing everything in the Dan River. But, never fear, polluters will sue hoping that the new conservative majority will permit us all to choke and die. Toxins emitted from coal fired plants cause developmental disabilities as well.
There’s also the wastewater rule that polluters want to ditch so we can continue to have our groundwater, rivers, and streams full of stuff that kills anything in its path. Although renewables are gaining ground, fossil fuel plants still account for 60% of our electricity supply, 200 of which burn coal. Maybe the so-called strict constructionists should live under our power systems of 1776. That was even before whale oil lamps.
Prayer for the Day
Ah, dear God, we come to you asking for respite
As fossil fuel wealth flexes its power destroying our lives;
We want to live in ways that will save your creation,
But we face enormous obstacles from moneyed interests.
Move narrow minds and old ways of thinking into the future
So we are able to live and care for our posterity.
In the name of the One who broadens our minds,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The analysis [of air pollution from 480 coal power plants] tied at least 460,000 deaths to exposure to fine particulate matter, also known as PM2.5. ...the death toll declined drastically as plants closed (600 coal plants have been retired over the past 20 years) or as sulfur filters were installed to comply with environmental regulations.
Lucas Henneman, lead author of the study
Water is life, and clean water means health.
Audrey Hepburn, actress, UN representative on health (1929-1993)
You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water
You provide the people with grain, or you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers,
And blessing its growth.
Psalm 65: 9-10