Health Impacts
(We credit much of the following to excellent research and writing by Massachusetts Environmental Energy Alliance, www.massenvironmentalenergy.org More detailed information is available on their website.)
Palmer Renewable Energy admits that they would burn contaminated wood in order to stay in business. The question is, how much? It is often impossible to identify a piece of contaminated wood, much less handling 900 tons, or 28 trailer loads, of debris a day that has already been chipped elsewhere. Once the fuel has been chipped, characteristics identifying contaminated wood are lost. Because of this, there is no possible control over the contents of the fuel. Palmer Renewable Energy's claim that they will meet emissions restrictions by hand sorting what goes into the incinerator is simply not believable.
There is NO ongoing lead, arsenic, mercury, or chromium emissions stack testing required for biomass plants, unlike at coal plants. In fact, no MA law regulates the amount of mercury emitted by this biomass plant!
Nobody will know, on any given day, week or month, what toxins are being emitted from Palmer Renewable Energy’s smokestack.
Over the past year, Palmer Renewable Energy has simply lowered their anticipated emissions, on paper, to answer state objections, without changing anything in their fuel supply or sorting procedures. The following are the most current levels of proposed emissions:
Lead= 132 pounds/yr. Mt. Tom plant produces three times as much power but emits only 43 pounds.
Mercury= 5 pounds/yr, an absurd claim considering that this is less than a comparable biomass plant burning clean, green wood. Without stack testing, there is no way to know how much mercury would actually be released into the air. Mt. Tom, by contrast, is limited to only 3 pounds per year.
Arsenic= 17 pounds/yr from pressure treated wood. Without stack testing, there is no way to know how much arsenic would actually be released into the air.
Hexavalent Chromium= 47 pounds/yr, or 41% of DEP’s Allowable Ambient Limit (AAL), the yearly exposure health threshold. Chromium, from pressure treated wood, is highly toxic and increases the rates of respiratory irritation, disease, and even cancer.
Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs)= 22 tons/yr, conveniently just under federal limits that would require greater regulation. HAPs is the group name for 187 compounds which are known to have highly harmful health or environmental effects. The list includes metals like chromium, lead, and mercury, as well as compounds like benzene (a constituent of gasoline) and methylene chloride, a widely used solvent. When an emitting source produces 25 or more tons of all HAPs, it is considered to be a “major source” under the Federal Clean Air Act.
Particulate Matter= 44 tons/yr. The EPA has found particulate matter harmful to humans. No safe level can be determined for particulate matter because of its association with cancer and impacts on respiratory health even at low levels. Western Massachusetts is close to exceeding the EPA air quality standards for particulates already. See www.airnow.gov for more information.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)= 22 tons/yr. Some are known to cause cancer in humans and are a key component of ground level ozone.
Nitrogen Oxides= 134 tons/yr. These compounds are what create ground-level ozone with the right conditions. The American Lung Association’s list of health effects of ozone include “shortness of breath, chest pain when inhaling deeply, wheezing and coughing and increased susceptibility to respiratory infections, risk of premature mortality, pulmonary inflammation, risk of asthma attacks and the need for medical treatment and for hospitalization of persons with asthma.”
Source: http://www.lungusa.org/site/c.dvLUK9O0E/b.4126997/
Carbon Monoxide= 156 tons/yr.
All these emissions will be added to the region’s air at a time when the western Massachusetts region has been given an “F” by the American Lung Association due
to high ground-level ozone and low grades for particulate matter (PM) pollution levels that are associated with asthma, heart disease, and cancer. (Source: http://www.stateoftheair.org/2009/states/massachusetts/)
Massachusetts recognizes the current problem of lead and mercury contamination by aggressively limiting what coal fired power plants can emit, but these same restrictions are NOT being applied to new biomass burning plants. More than half of Massachusetts’s lakes now have mercury advisories warning that fish are not safe to eat because of their high mercury content.
Modeling for emissions permitting is performed using averages and assumptions on general air movement. Any actual day’s air quality can be far worse than what the permit implies. An air quality permit does NOT guarantee safe air on any one day, or week, for that matter. |
