To: Illinois Pollution Control Board and Governor J.B. Pritzker
No Permission to Pollute Illinois Air
Don't give Illinois coal plants a free pass to pollute. I urge you to reject the request (PCB 2014-010) to let five coal plants violate Illinois air pollution limits for the next five years.
Why is this important?
My family lives in Pekin, Illinois, which is just downwind of the Edwards coal-fired power plant. I am the mother of two wonderful children who grew up here in Pekin, both of whom have respiratory ailments they have struggled with throughout their lives. My daughter’s terrible chronic asthma attacks started as a baby. As I would drive her to the Emergency Room I would wonder what I was doing wrong as a mother to cause her suffering. But after I learned more about the community I live in, I began to realize that the polluting facilities around me were likely what was causing her health problems, and I vowed to fight for clean air from this day forward.
The Edwards coal plant has been operating in my community for 52 years and does not have modern pollution controls. Pollution levels in the county that I live in were documented by EPA as the highest in the state, causing the area to be designated as in “non-attainment” by USEPA last month. Yet, in the next few weeks, the Illinois Pollution Control Board (IPCB) is poised to give the plant’s future owner a permission to keep operating this out of date coal plant until 2020 without reducing its dangerous air pollution.
I will no longer sit by as this coal plant makes my children and my community sick, and continues to receive permission to pollute from our state government. Enough is enough – please join me in urging Governor Quinn and the Illinois Pollution Control Board not to let Dynegy off the hook for polluting across Illinois.
A Texas-based energy company called Dynegy is in the process of buying five dirty Illinois coal plants from Ameren, including the Edwards plant in my community. Dynegy has said publically that they will only buy these plants if they are guaranteed not to have to follow state pollution laws until 2020. As a mother, I see this like telling a car dealer I will only buy a car for my 15 year old daughter if they can guarantee she can disobey all traffic laws. This is irresponsible and wrong.
The proposal isn’t only dangerous and wrong, it is also in violation of the IPCB’s own rules. The rules specify that variances can only be granted to the owners of the polluting facilities, but Ameren’s sale of five Illinois coal plants to Dynegy isn’t expected to be completed until the end of this year.
The request Dynegy has filed with the IPCB asks for an exemption that would allow the coal plants to exceed state pollution limits for sulfur dioxide and other dangerous pollutants for the next five years.
I, too, have developed chronic asthma and now know what it feels like to struggle for my next breath. I now carry an inhaler with me at all times. Governor Quinn's Pollution Control Board will soon choose between cleaner air in Illinois and the dirty profits of an out-of-state energy company. It is going to take strong grassroots pressure to persuade them to make the right choice. I hope you will join me.
The Edwards coal plant has been operating in my community for 52 years and does not have modern pollution controls. Pollution levels in the county that I live in were documented by EPA as the highest in the state, causing the area to be designated as in “non-attainment” by USEPA last month. Yet, in the next few weeks, the Illinois Pollution Control Board (IPCB) is poised to give the plant’s future owner a permission to keep operating this out of date coal plant until 2020 without reducing its dangerous air pollution.
I will no longer sit by as this coal plant makes my children and my community sick, and continues to receive permission to pollute from our state government. Enough is enough – please join me in urging Governor Quinn and the Illinois Pollution Control Board not to let Dynegy off the hook for polluting across Illinois.
A Texas-based energy company called Dynegy is in the process of buying five dirty Illinois coal plants from Ameren, including the Edwards plant in my community. Dynegy has said publically that they will only buy these plants if they are guaranteed not to have to follow state pollution laws until 2020. As a mother, I see this like telling a car dealer I will only buy a car for my 15 year old daughter if they can guarantee she can disobey all traffic laws. This is irresponsible and wrong.
The proposal isn’t only dangerous and wrong, it is also in violation of the IPCB’s own rules. The rules specify that variances can only be granted to the owners of the polluting facilities, but Ameren’s sale of five Illinois coal plants to Dynegy isn’t expected to be completed until the end of this year.
The request Dynegy has filed with the IPCB asks for an exemption that would allow the coal plants to exceed state pollution limits for sulfur dioxide and other dangerous pollutants for the next five years.
I, too, have developed chronic asthma and now know what it feels like to struggle for my next breath. I now carry an inhaler with me at all times. Governor Quinn's Pollution Control Board will soon choose between cleaner air in Illinois and the dirty profits of an out-of-state energy company. It is going to take strong grassroots pressure to persuade them to make the right choice. I hope you will join me.