York Daily Record Editorial Staff
Good
job: Brunner Island certainly takes its share of public relations lumps
– make that lumps of coal – for being one of the most polluting power
plants in the state.
The
coal-fired plant in East Manchester Township along the Susquehanna
River always seems to be near the top of the list of “dirty” plants. In
fact, just last year the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited the
plant as the third worst chemical polluter in Pennsylvania – based on
2002 emissions.
That’s
not good in a sate that ranked second in the nation in 2003 for
emissions of fine-particle soot, fifth for carbon dioxide and seventh
for smog-forming nitrogen oxides emissions. Those pollutants can lead
to heart and lung ailments.
So it was good to see the plant, owned by PPL Corp., lauded by an environmental groups for cleaning up its act.
PennEnvironment’s
“Pollution on the Rise” report noted the plant decreased overall
emissions of pollutants from 1995 to 2003. The study said the plant
decreased carbon dioxide emissions by 11 percent, fine particle soot
emissions by 24 percent and nitrogen oxides by 19 percent.
“They’re
heading in the right direction that all power plants should be
heading,” said Nathan Willcox, a clean air advocate with
PennEnvironment. “This isn’t to say the couldn’t and shouldn’t be going
further, but a decrease in emissions is obviously better than an
increase.”
Obviously.
We
as a society could further decrease such emissions by moving to cleaner
sources of electricity generation – and we should, even though that’s a
slow process. In the meantime, though, hats off to Brunner Island, and
keep working to further reduce those emissions.
