'Unhealthy' Air Pollution Levels

The American Lung Association says 60 percent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air pollution levels and many of them are in Georgia. Atlanta ranked No. 23 among 25 cities ranked for ozone pollution. Ozone is a reactive gas molecule that's the primary ingredient of smog air pollution and is very harmful to breathe. Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb were among several Georgia counties that earned an 'F' grade for ozone pollution. But the report does suggest Atlanta has seen improvements in air quality over the last decade.

(Associated Press)

State EPD Says Four Mid-sized Cities May Face Ozone Pollution Status

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division has made its official recommendation on which cities in Georgia need to clean up their air. This year, in addition to metro Atlanta, four mid-sized cities were recommended to be non-attainment areas. That means they'll have to work harder to curb ground level ozone pollution.

The cities: Augusta, Athens, Macon and Columbus.

The EPD's recommendations are not final. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will ultimately have the final say.

In the meantime, the cities will study how to clean up their air. One big contributor to ozone pollution is automobile traffic. Cities will look at how to reduce those emissions.

Non-attainment would also put tighter controls on industry.

The cities are likely failing now because they're having to meet tougher federal air quality standards. The EPA will make its final decision on the cities' non-attainment status by March 2010. The state would then have three years to come up with a plan to deal with the ozone.

Ozone is a component of smog, which causes respiratory illnesses.

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Augusta, Columbus make EPA air pollution list

Residents in Augusta and Columbus are at risk for breathing air that is too sooty, according to an Environmental Protection Agency statement on Monday.

The EPA notified elected officials in 211 counties in 25 states that their air quality violated newly tightened daily standards for fine particles of pollution from diesel-burning trucks, power plants, wood-burning stoves and other sources.

Particle pollution can cause heart attacks and strokes, and cause irregular heartbeats, lung cancer and premature births, according to a statement by the American Lung Association, in response to the EPA report.

The regions in question include about 100 million people.

Areas on the EPA's so-called non-attainment list have until 2012 to devise a plan for cleaning their air, and must implement it by 2014.

State and federal agencies collected data on particulate emissions over the past three summers in Muscogee, Harris, and Chattahoochee counties in Georgia, and Lee and Russell counties in Alabama.

Columbus city planning director Rick Jones has said that reaching non-attainment standards could limit federal funding for projects.

Old power plants and factories due for renovation or expansion in these areas must show the EPA that it would not cause further air pollution. It could mean also controls on vehicle emissions and regions having to take pollution into effect when they build new roads.

Click here for more GPB News coverage about air quality issues statewide.

Ga. Power applying for biomass plant permits

Plant Mitchell. (Dave Bender)

Georgia Power Company wants to trade in coal for woodchips to fuel a power plant near Albany. The company is investing in bio mass technology with the hope of saving money.

While bio mass is considered a cleaner fuel source compared to coal, Georgia Power believes it could also be a cheaper solution for producing electricity.

Plant Mitchell turbine area: only one of the facilities three yellow turbines is operational. (Dave Bender)

On a tour of Plant Mitchell in nearby Albany, manager Ronnie Walston explains that Georgia’s millions of acres of forests could be used to power energy producing turbines.

Plant Mitchell water boilers. Coal or wood biomass is heated at the bottom. (Dave Bender)

Currently, the company is experimenting by burning wood chips and similar waste products instead of coal to heat water in the plant's three–story-high boilers. Walston, shouting over the roar of steam turbines in the background:

“The generator takes high-pressure steam from the boiler, turns the generator which delivers 155 megawatts of electrical energy to the grid in Georgia.”

The generator consumes a whopping 62-tons of coal an hour.

Plant Mitchell: Rail cars delivering coal at a siding. (Dave Bender)

After the conversion, the plant would require 160-trucks a day to haul in a million tons of wood chips. While using wood cuts the electrical output by a third, it’s enough to power an estimated 90,000 homes.

Walston says the conversion would keep the plant - which now buys its coal from Appalachia - running for years to come and help the local economy:

“…those dollars now flow out of state. Now, with the biomass – that’s currently not being utilized – will be purchased and consumed here within a 100-mile radius of Plant Mitchell, and so those dollars that previously went out of state will be staying in-state and will create some 50-to-75 jobs in the fuel-harvesting area.”

If successful, the bio mass conversion could happen in 2012.

Control panel at Plant Mitchell. (Dave Bender)

The plan still needs approval from the Environmental Protection Division and the Public Service Commission. A recent study by Oregon state officials show bio mass can cost up to 6.7 per kilowatt hour to produce.

Forbes Magazine ranks Georgia as the third best state in the nation for alternative energy from biomass. The article referenced the amount of privately owned forest in Georgia, more than any other state in the country, as a reason for the state’s ranking. The ranking comes on the heels of CNBC’s including Georgia in the top ten and second in the Southeast in its annual rankings of “America’s Top States for Business.”

EPA estimates show Georgian's pay 6.5 cents for coal produced electricity. The cost of biomass is expected to drop as technologies improve and more plants come online.

Click here for more GPB News coverage about biomass and related alternative energy solutions.

Burn ban ends in Georgia

The state's seasonal burn ban ends today.

But burning trash can be dangerous right now, with an increase of fire spreading due to extremely dry weather.

Officials say people should not burn when there are high winds and low humidity, according to the Associated Press.

The ban lasted from May 1 to September 30.

The state imposed it to cut down on air pollution.

Smog season ends on a plus

Today marks the end of smog season in metro Atlanta and it's been a better year for the city's air pollution. Air quality experts say pollution controls combined with good weather gave the area one of its easiest-breathing summers in a decade. This was the third-best year for air quality since the state started keeping track in 1998.

Clearing the air in Columbus

In western Georgia, Columbus officials say they believe their city won’t be included in an upcoming nationwide air-pollution report.

State and federal Environmental Protection agencies collected data over the past three summers on particulate emissions in Muscogee, Harris, and Chattahoochee counties in Georgia, and Lee and Russell counties in Alabama.

So-called "non-attainment" of federal air-quality standards would limit federal funding for projects, according to Rick Jones, city planning director.

Columbus is trying to cut air pollution, in part, by limiting idling time for diesel-powered city vehicles, which can be a leading source of particulates.

The report is due out in December.

Builders still banking on SW Georgia power plant

LS Power, the company seeking to build a coal-fired power plant in southwest Georgia, says it will appeal a recent court ruling that halted construction.

Mike Vogt, project director with LS Power told the Dothan Eagle newspaper,

“We’re 100 percent committed to staying the course to begin construction.”

In a landmark ruling on June 30, the Fulton County Superior Court reversed an earlier administrative court decision on an Environmental Protection Division (EPD) permit that had okayed the $1.2 billion project in Early County.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore reversed a previous decision by Atlanta Administrative Law Judge Judge Stephanie Howells, giving the go-ahead for the project.

LS Power will appeal the decision to the Georgia Court of Appeals in August.

Proponents say the project will provide hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue for the poor rural area.

A group of area residents and environmentalists fighting the project say the plant will emit unchecked amounts of carbon dioxide, harmful amounts of dust, and other pollutants.

The Longleaf Power Plant would be the first such facility to be built in Georgia in the last two decades.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the issues at stake in the case.

Carpooling comes to Columbus

(Courtesy Clean Air Campaign)

Soaring gas prices are making carpooling an appealing option to more and more Georgians. Columbus in southwestern Georgia has limited mass transit, but is helping people cope with pain at the pump by promoting carpooling.

The Clean Air Campaign and the Air Quality Alliance of the Chattahoochee Valley offer the money-saving measure:

“There are several options available to people who would like alternative means of commuting to their job, and there are options for commuters who are currently driving alone, and would like to begin using a clean-commute alternative," according to Tracy Hall of the Columbus City Planning Department. "There are also rewards available for people who are already carpooling."

Hall says carpoolers can get a monthly gas card worth forty to sixty dollars, by logging their travel distance through a website.

Several Columbus-area companies have already signed up, TSYS among them. The Georgia Department of Transportation-funded program is available to commuters statewide.

More details are online at www.commuterrewards.com and at www.cleanaircampaign.com.

Detailed fuel prices statewide are available here.

Click here for more GPB News coverage about pollution issues statewide.

Columbus: 'Smog Alerts Just A Start'

(Department of Natural Resources)

Air quality in Columbus is worsening, and the city is starting out the New Year with smog alerts.

Federal and State Environmental Protection agency officials are threatening the city with what's know as “non-attainment” of air quality goals. City officials say the designation would sharply curtail business development.
Today's air quality is at 42, considered according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

Although the city says it currently meets federal air-quality smog standards, Columbus admits that in 2007, they racked up no less than ten violations for particle pollution.

Columbus Planning Director Rick Jones says, "...it means simply that our air standards don't meet national standards, that the EPA has established... What we're setting up is an email notification system, to let folks know what the air-quality will be for the next day...”

But Jones says the city's cleaning up their act before the 2009 cutoff date.

In September, the city spearheaded a volunteer program with over 60 municipal and local organizations to cut diesel emissions, car idling, limit open burning and raise public awareness of the issue.

Current air quality information is available here: http://www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/columbussmogforecast/

Georgians will be able to sign up for the emails as of next week at the city's website: http://www.columbusga.com/MPO

Click here for more GPB News coverage of pollution issues.

Dozens speak on air pollution proposal

A federal proposal could force the state and private companies to clean up Georgia's air. Dozens of people weighed in Wednesday at a public hearing in Atlanta.

Sherian Wilburn of the Georgia Industry Association told U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials that their proposal to further restrict pollutions would be bad for businesses.

"It will definitely put pressure on manufacturers," Wilburn says. "They'll look elsewhere and we could easily drive jobs offshore."

Wilburn says Georgia has lost 80,000 manufacturing jobs in the past seven years.

But environmentalists came to the hearing in force. Patty Durand of the Sierra Club told regulators that, several times this summer, she would not let her son play outside and she urged her husband not to go running because the smog level was so high it posed a health hazard. Durand says tougher federal ozone standards might be the only thing that will motivate Georgia leaders to act.

"They would be forced to look at transit, whereas right now they're judgmental," Durand says. "It would require them to take care of our air. Right now they're not focused on it."

But Governor Sonny Perdue is siding with industry. In April, he sent a letter to EPA opposing the proposal. In it, he wrote "the science may not be definitive enough to warrant another revision."

The last time the EPA revised its ozone standard was in 1997. It will make a final ruling on its proposal by March.

Early Co. power-plant opponents make their case

Blakely City Hall in town square,
county seat of Early Co.
(Photo: Dave Bender)

Environmental groups opposing construction of a power plant in southwest Georgia had their day in an Atlanta court today.

The coalition, which filed an appeal in June, includes a group of Early County residents opposed to a new coal-fired power plant there.

Justine Thompson, executive director of Greenlaw, says the plant will make grandchildren of local residents with property nearby suffer:

"Their grandchildren, that go to this property regularly, have respiratory illnesses, so they're very afraid of how the plant is going to impact the health of these children, and whether or not they're going to have to keep them indoors."

Supporters say the two-billion dollar plant is safe, and will bring tax revenue and hundreds of jobs to the area.

The Georgia Office of State Administrative Hearings in Atlanta will hear more arguments against the facility tomorrow.

Click the green arrow below to hear this report.

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Clean Cities Coalition comes to Rome

Just days after Bibb County reached EPA attainment for its levels of air pollution, a new partnership hopes to do the same thing in Northwest Georgia.

There may not be any actual cities in the area, but that isn’t stopping the Clean Cities Coalition from locating its newest office here.

Several Northwest Georgia Counties, like Floyd, Walker and Murray, have high levels of air pollution and are in non-attainment with the EPA.

The Clean Cities Coalition is a project of the US Department of Energy. It partners with local industries to decrease the use of petroleum consumption and already has offices in Macon and Tifton.

Georgia Clean Cities Executive Director Charise Stephens said because there are already two bio-diesel producers in Rome, the area has a head start.

Can you imagine the potential? You have the distributor, you have the producers here, and you have 15 counties that can possibly use the project.

Stephens said the coalition will also work to encourage alternative transportation.

Georgia's air pollution levels high

Smog season starts today. The American Lung Association released its annual State of the Air report, and the good news is that ozone levels are down across the country.

The bad news? Georgia has two of the most polluted cities in the country.

It’s no surprise to see Atlanta ranked number thirteen on the list of cities with the worst air pollution.

But to find tiny Rome number 24 on the list of Metropolitan Areas Most Polluted by Year-Round Particle Pollution, tied with Philadelphia and Hagerstown, Maryland, came as a shock to some residents.

Eric Lindberg, the county’s environmental service director, questions whether the air pollution here is as bad as it seems:

We know that the monitoring site is actually in a spot you would choose if you wanted to find the worst air, and that’s sort of led to some questions about the quality of the data.

Floyd County has been in non-attainment with the Clean Air Act for the past two years after the Environmental Protection Agency passed more stringent air quality guidelines.

Lindberg said he hopes more bio-diesel-powered school buses and new smoke stacks at a Georgia Power coal-fired power plant will knock Rome off the list next year.