New Report Says Burning Coal in Europe Costs Billions in Health Care

Coal - handful ofMany of you are aware that former EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz is now heading-up a Sierra Club effort to close the remaining old coal plants in East and Central Texas that have plagued downwind communities, including DFW, for decades. One big reason is the direct connection between the kinds of pollution these plants release, like Particulate Matter, and their known health effects. Based on past studies, scientists are able to determine what levels of air pollution cause what level of medical responses.

Last week, something called the Health and Environmental Alliance released a report that used that methodology to add up what it said was all the early deaths, hospitalizations, medications and reduced productivity caused by breathing coal plant pollution in Europe and came up with a total of $55 billion a year. It's the first-ever calculation of the effects of coal-fired power generation on chronic lung disease and some heart conditions for the entire continent.

Significantly, it has found that the effects of the pollution which coal incineration causes are not confined to people living close to power stations, but can affect entire populations in varying degrees.

Burning coal to generate electricity worsens a group of conditions known as chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, the report said. These include emphysema, breathing obstructions and bronchitis. It also aggravates asthma and worsens heart disease.

HEAL says the elderly and the young are at particular risk, with lung damage sustained in childhood reducing the chances of achieving maximum lung function in adult life.

We haven't seen any similar studies of the costs of breathing coal plant pollution in Texas or DFW, but they could be large since we're directly downwind of the state's "lignite belt" where almost all the older, dirtier coal plants are located.

Dr. Al Breaks His Silence

After over three months of not saying much about the circumstances of his resignation as EPA Region 6 Administrator, Dr. Al Armendariz used the online Texas Tribune for his coming-out this last week. He's joined the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign as its southwest director.

"I have a small handful of objectives. The first is to stop the construction of any new coal plants in Texas. And also to stop the expansion of any additional coal exports from Texas ports [to] overseas. The second objective is to work on the transition … to clean renewable sources of energy. And the third objective is to work really with all of the stakeholders in the state to further the development of renewable sources of energy, like wind and solar and geothermal."

1, 2, 3 Many Dr Als

What made it possible for someone like Dr. Armendariz to become a Regional Administrator? Years of experience as an environmental engineer? Check. Desire? Check. But also opportunity. Before Downwinders selected him to be our scientist to help enforce the Holcim Cement settlement, he’d never done work for a grassroots group in DFW. He was a blank slate. We were considering other, better-known, more traditionally citizen-friendly candidates in other parts of the country but two factors influenced us greatly. We wanted someone local who could respond quickly in case of an accident or “upset” at the Holcim plant. And we wanted to develop local scientific expertise. We wanted to grow our own. And boy did we. As if some dormant civic DNA had been activated, Dr. Al took to his new public policy-making role like a Polisci major. He outgrew us quickly and became the air pollution expert of choice for a wide variety of groups. All of that work led to him becoming a logical consensus choice for Regional Administrator among the Texas environmental community. And whatever role he assume now, he’ll be a formidable force for good for the foreseeable future. But that all begins with a grassroots group with a garage-sale-size budget taking the leap of faith on an unknown local SMU scientist with no history of environmental advocacy. We keep trying to develop and deploy local expertise as much as we can. Last year, we persuaded UTA Prof. Melanie Sattler to write the first report of its kind detailing how much more profit gas operators could make in the DFW area by installing off-the-shelf air pollution control equipment. What we and other grassroots groups need are more opportunities to be able to pay and cultivate this expertise. Only the fact that Holcim was covering Dr. Armendriz’s tab as part of the settlement agreement with Downwinders allowed us to hire him in the first place. We have to find ways to institutionalize this kind of intellectual agricultural locally. Groups have to seek local expertise out. Funding sources must allow for it in their grants. Not every story will turn out to be as dramatically successful as Dr. Armendariz’s, but we won’t be able to repeat his success unless we’re out there trying.