King would have fought coal plants
By Joseph E. Lowery
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
January 17, 2010
“Somehow the forces of justice stand on the side of the universe, so that you can’t ultimately trample over God’s children and profit by it.” — Martin Luther King Jr., “The Birth of a New Nation,” April 7, 1957
As a “chaplain of the common good,” I am persuaded that Martin would join in the cry against environmental injustice wherever it seeks to pursue its assault against God’s children.
I believe that he would be crying out against any coal-fired plants, rising anew or already operating, because they spew dangerous pollutants into the air and drain our precious waters. I believe he would be a mighty force in convincing us that coal plants are no longer needed in our beloved Georgia — or anywhere else. He would preach that coal plants represent injustice; that they are trampling over God’s children.
In his final years with us, well before the first Earth Day in 1970, Martin expanded his good work to include the pursuit of environmental justice for all. Environmental justice is the simple truth that rich and poor people of all races have the right to clean air and clean water. Environmental justice examines how corporate greed and government policies unfairly harm minority and disadvantaged communities.
We are all grimly aware that inequality and discrimination remain potent in all walks of life, from job pay to matters of common decency. But too many are unaware of the injustice placed on low-income communities and people of color in rural areas.
Pollution from coal mining and coal-fired power plants cause serious illnesses: asthma and other respiratory afflictions, kidney and heart disease, and cancer. Mercury released by coal fumes enters our lakes and rivers and accumulates in fish, making them dangerous to eat.
“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered,” King preached in a 1967 sermon in Atlanta.
In 2002, the Coalition for the People’s Agenda, along with other groups, published “Air of Injustice.” This report detailed how African-Americans are harmed by coal pollutants. It revealed that 68 percent of African-Americans live within 30 miles of a coal plant, and noted that new power plants are most likely to be sited in African-American communities.
Already, African-American children are five times more likely to die from asthma than white children. And while coal plants everywhere are being abandoned or readapted for cleaner alternatives, Martin’s beloved native Georgia is taking foolish leaps into its dangerous and destructive past. Georgia has two new coal plants in planning stages (in central Georgia’s Washington County and in the southwest corner of Early County). Still another coal plant is being quietly talked about for Ben Hill County in south-central Georgia.
The “granddaddy” investor behind two of these plants (those for Washington and Ben Hill counties) is Cobb Electric Membership Corp., which chiefly serves Cobb County residents. (Power4Georgians is the actual developer of those two sites and is made up of several EMCs, the largest being Cobb EMC.) This EMC has never put a coal plant in Cobb County itself. But it has no problem placing huge, billion-dollar coal plants in minority communities many miles away. Out of sight, out of mind. That is social and environmental injustice!
We have learned about an investigation by the Cobb district attorney’s office into alleged racketeering, theft and mismanagement by Cobb EMC officials. My hope is that newly elected directors on the Cobb EMC board will pull the plug on all coal investments.
Georgia doesn’t need to be the last irresponsible place on earth choosing coal. As Genesis reminds us, we must all rise to the challenge of thoughtful stewardship of what has been entrusted to us, to care for “the fish of the sea ... the birds of the air ... the cattle, and all creatures upon earth.”
The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery is president emeritus of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1957, Lowery and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He is the recipient of the 2009 Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.
Find this article at: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/king-would-have-fought-277139.htm
For Immediate release:
December 16, 2009
Contact:
Julie Bookman, GSE, 404-523-5823
John Carswell, SRK, 912-258-3678
Gordon Rogers, FRK, 912-223-6761
Plant Ben Hill: Another Coal-fired Plant Proposed for Georgia
Power4Georgians Targets Rural Georgia Again for Dirty Coal Plant
Waynesville, Ga. — A private consortium of electric cooperatives, Power4Georgians (P4G), intends to develop a second 850-megawatt coal-fired plant in Georgia, in addition to Plant Washington, north of Sandersville in middle Georgia. Its second plant would be near Fitzgerald in south-central Ben Hill County. Located on the Ocmulgee River, proposed Plant Ben Hill’s coal-burning technology would require enormous water resources in the production of electricity and would emit dangerous pollutants affecting the immediate area as well as downstream and upwind communities.
Power4Georgians, LLC, is composed of five electric membership corporations (EMCs). They are: Cobb EMC (Cobb County and surrounding area); Central Georgia EMC (south metro Atlanta, north Macon area); Snapping Shoals EMC (southeast Atlanta metro area); Upson EMC (six counties in west central Georgia); and Washington EMC (Sandersville area, Washington County).
While these plans have been kept quiet and the public is just learning about them, the proposal to create Plant Ben Hill is active, according to Dean Alford, president of Allied Energy Services (AES) and spokesman for Power4Georgians. Alford recently met with members of the Fall-line Alliance for a Clean Environment (FACE) and noted that he was developing Plant Ben Hill as well as Plant Washington. Conservative cost estimates for construction of both proposed coal-burning plants are more than $4.6 billion – more than $13,800 in debt for each of the 333,133 EMC members in the Power4Georgians consortium.
<<More>>
Independent Analysis Finds Plant Washington a Risk to
Washington County Taxpayers
For Immediate Release: December 8, 2009
Contact: Julie Bookman, GSE, 404-523-5823
Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies: A independent study of the fisical impact of the proposed coal fired power plant.
New Study Finds Prior Estimates Overstate Jobs and Revenue to County; County to Provide $66.4 Million Subsidy and May Need to Fund Infrastructure with New Taxes
Sandersville, Ga.— Taxpayers in Washington County face serious risks and will likely not reap the financial and employment perks that supporters of the proposed Plant Washington are promising if the $2.1 billion coal-burning plant is built, according to an independent analysis released today by the Ochs Center. That assessment provided by the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies, a Chattanooga, Tenn.- based non-profit research group, shows that prior projections of new revenue for Washington County from Plant Washington may be off the mark and County taxpayers may be left holding the bag for new infrastructure costs.
David Eichenthal, a public finance expert (see bio below) who led the independent analysis, said the projected financial arrangements of the proposed 850-megawatt plant in Middle Georgia raise numerous red flags.
“This is a project that doesn’t provide what it purports to provide,” said Eichenthal. “The basis for past projections of new revenue for Washington County is unclear and appears to be based in part on unrealistic assumptions about the number of permanent jobs that will go to Washington County residents. There are also real risks to this deal when it comes to how plant construction and related infrastructure costs are financed. Rather than creating new jobs and revenue for the County, Plant Washington could lead to long-term financial risks for taxpayers. There’s a lot to be worried about because in a very real sense, Plant Washington is a fiscal pig in a poke.”
<<MORE>>
Big Utility to Close 11 Plants Using Coal
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON — A large Southern utility said Tuesday that it would close 30 percent of its North Carolina coal-fired power plants by 2017, a step that represents a bet that natural gas prices will stay acceptably low and that stricter rules are coming on sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause acid rain.
The utility, Progress Energy, based in Raleigh, said it would close 11 coal-fired power plants built between the 1950s and 1970s.
“Some of these plants are quite old,” said Bill Johnson, the chief executive of the company. But, he added, “They have a lot of useful life left in them, absent the need to put emissions control units on them.”
<<MORE>>
EPD Public Hearing on Plant Washington
SANDERSVILLE, Ga. — A diverse cross-section of Georgians packed an elementary school cafeteria in Sandersville Tuesday night to tell state environmental officials that pollution from a planned coalburning power plant in Washington County posed unnecessary threats to public health and the region’s
air quality and diminishing water supplies. <<more>>
Read Public Comments Presented at EPD Public Hearing on Plant Washington
LATEST NEWS:
Toxic Coal Ash building up in ponds 32 states, including Georgia.
10-4-09, All I Need Is The Air I Breathe, Carlton Fletcher, Albany Herald
"Wildlife in the Flint and Chattahoochee rivers, as well as on land surrounding the plant, would be adversely affected by the plant's pollutants, detractors say."
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