Sierra Club opposes White Bluff work
SIERRA CLUB NEWS RELEASE
Redfield, AR – Concerned Arkansas ratepayers, health experts and area residents packed the American Legion on Tuesday evening where the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) held a public hearing on the future of Entergy’s White Bluff coal-fired plant. If ADEQ approves Entergy’s proposal, ratepayers will be charged over one billion dollars to extend the plant’s life.
Glen Hooks, Regional Director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign said that, “We should not hit Arkansas ratepayers with a Billion dollar rate increase so that Entergy can continue polluting our air by burning dirty coal. It makes more sense to save that money and to switch to cleaner sources of energy. Dirty Coal is a bad investment for Arkansas citizens.”
Tracy Sykes, a concerned ratepayer from Little Rock, voiced her opposition to the company’s air permit request, stating that, “The White Bluff plant has served us well for a long time. It now is the time for Entergy to seize the opportunity to be a leader in clean energy solutions that will be good for Arkansas.”
The public hearing provided the only forum for citizens to speak face-to-face with ADEQ officials who are reviewing Entergy’s permit request and will either approve or deny it. Concerned citizens can send their written comments into ADEQ until November 24th.
Ann Owen, who serves as the Chair of the Second Presbyterian Church’s Environmental Stewardship Task Force and is on the Steering Committee of Arkansas Interfaith Power and Light noted that, “The waste from White Bluff will continue to contaminate our groundwater, and because the air permit does nothing to reduce mercury emissions, our Natural State runs the risk of continuing to be one of the ‘dirty dozen’ states when it comes to mercury pollution.”
Dozens of Sierra Club members attended the hearing to voice their message that shelling out one billion dollars of ratepayer money to keep a dirty coal plant operating is not in the best interest of Arkansas’ citizens.
Scharmel Roussel of Arkansas Interfaith Power & Light commented that, “I am opposed to Entergy Arkansas wasting $1 billion on outdated technology for a dirty coal plant that should be closed. The expense will be passed on to consumers like me. It is time for Arkansas to invest in clean renewable energy resources for the sakes of our great-great-grandchildren. We have the technology. We need the willpower.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT THE SIERRA CLUB’S ARKANSAS BEYOND COAL WEBSITE AT WWW.SIERRACLUB.ORG/COAL/AR or call Lev
Guter, Sierra Club coal organizer, at (501) 301-8280.
Comments
The problem I have with this is that the Sierra Club typically has a "win it for the Sierra Club" mentality without regard to the individuals being affected by their opposition to projects they feel are not environmentally friendly.
With regard to coal, they have zero tolerance. Coal is a cheap, plentiful and domestic source of energy and can be burned cleanly with state of the art technologies. However, instead of supporting efforts to clean coal, they continue to stand on their pulpit and attempt to scare people with exagerating pollution and poisoning statistics. What are their realistic alternates? Renewables? Nuclear? It must be renewables because they are the same people that killed the nuclear power industry in this country in the 70's.
The facts for Arkansas are this:
The renewable energy potential for Arkansas is one of the lowest in the country. It is a poor state for Solar energy because it has a high rainfall total. It has only a small geographic area that could support wind power and it has no geothermal potential. This is easily verified by going to the US Department of Energy site: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/reps/rpmap/rp_contents.html , this site illustrates the potential for renewables by state. If Arkansas was to tap into it's natural "renewable" resource, trees, the Sierra Club would have problems with that too. They reject the idea that the people of Arkansas will pay for this environmental project at White Bluff but they don't reject that if the good people of Arkansas will see much higher power costs if very expensive and unreliable sources of renewable energy are used. And by the way, Nuclear plants cost billions of dollars to build and they kill the food chain and hence any aquatic life in and around the water supply that they must be built on with intense thermal pollution.
The local people in the Redfield area see this as a threat to alot of jobs that are associated with the White Bluff Power Station, but there is a greater economic impact. A project of this magnitude would bring in hundreds of construction jobs, stimulate the local hotel, restaurant and shopping business for years and inherently create a better quality of life for those living in and around the area.
Now that is seems that I am a Sierra Club basher, I would like to also say that although they are extreme and unrealistic in their positions, they are a necessary evil in creating a balance of reason as U.S. corporations do not have a great track record of caring about the environment without being policed.
No one wins in these environmental battles. Good common sense would see both sides coming together for a reasonable compromise so that this project can move forward expeditiously.
Posted by: George Grgich![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/nav-commenters.gif)
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November 19, 2009 07:58 AM