Protest today at ancient coal plant making Chicagoans sick; EPA and state sue owner

(Photo of Climate Action Day demonstration near Fisk coal plant in Chicago, by Earthling Angst. See more International Climate Action Day photos from around the world.)



A lump of coal in your stocking if you’ve been bad. That was the threat at Christmastime when I was a kid. Now we’re learning that coal was worse than we thought. It heats up the planet and makes people sick. It kills people.

So it was fitting that the Chicago protest today, on International Climate Action Day, was at the filthy, ancient Fisk coal-fired electric plant, which along with it’s sibling, Crawford, sits in the heart of Chicago’s mostly Hispanic neighborhoods. The final slap in the face is that it isn’t even supplying electricity to the area. It’s sending it out of state.

But Mayor Daley and the City Council seem oblivious to Fisk and Crawford while they try to maintain Chicago is one of the “cleanest, greenest” cities in the nation.

Health hazard
Fisk and Crawford are responsible for 2,800 asthma attacks, 550 emergency room visits, and 41 premature deaths a year, according to the Sierra Club.

A study of 9 coal-fired plants in Northern Illinois by Harvard’s School of Public Health says together they cause 21,500 asthma attacks each year. Chicago has twice the national rate of asthma, according to the Environmental Law and Policy Center. Asthma is a serious and sometimes fatal disease.

Fisk and Crawford, owned by Midwest Generation, were last upgraded in the 1950s, ELPC says. Midwest Generation also has plants in Peoria, Joliet, Waukegan, Pekin and Romeoville.

Lawsuit filed
A coalition of health and environmental organizations held a news conference at Fisk in late July, saying if the EPA did not act to stop repeated violations of the law, they would file suit against the company in 60 days. The main complaint was that the plants have been spewing excessive quantities of particulates (soot), far more than is allowable by law. Throughout the Bush years, the EPA gave the plants a free ride.

However, the current EPA director Lisa Jackson and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan responded by suing Midwest Generation themselves.

Environmental groups have long wanted to shut the plants down. One Chicago alderman said at the rally he will introduce an ordinance at the City Council to do just that. Meanwhile people who live near the plants continue to get sick.

(Sources: Sierra Club, Environmental Law and Policy Center)