Environment

Coal Burning Energy Power Plants Polute Water

by Gordon Clark | October 13, 2009 at 11:38 am

135 views | 4 Recommendations | 4 comments

Throughout America, but particularity in the North East, coal burning energy plants are being found as not only polluting the air but now also the water. It all started with the mainstream environmental movement of the last decade. It was a public outcry for cleaner air due to the increased awairness of acid rain. It took a couple years and a lot of lawsuits for companies to be required to install filter systems on the top of their smokestacks. The Chimneys work like this: A machine sprays a water and chemical solution down a big chimney and the solutions sticks to the poluting chemicals. The chemical, water and polutant solutions weight is now too heavy to escape the smoke stack so it can easily be trapped and released by "better methods."
As it turns out the "better method" is just dumping the pollutants into the local river. While coal burning companies report that they follow strict waste water treatment restrictions environmental reports state otherwise. In industrial areas that supply large cities with power via coal burning there are clear increased water pollutants downstream. Any given plant could release 150,000 tons of pollutants into the water each year.

This shouldn't be that hard to predict that if the pollution isn't going into the air it is likely going somewhere else. Good thing the Baucus American health care reform just passed.

The local residents are obviously concerned because in many cases it the the same poluted rivers that municipalities gather drinking water.

“Americans want cheap electricity, but those of us who live around power plants are the ones who have to pay for it,” Mr. Coleman said. “It’s like being in the third world.”

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Roy C

at 13:49 on October 13th, 2009

The coal plants in China pollute our waters, Citizen Reporter. Don't forget that. 20% of the mercury crossed the ocean to be here in the Northwest.

a211423

at 13:56 on October 13th, 2009

As it turns out the "better method" is just dumping the pollutants into the local river.

If we decide as a nation that we are going to allow coal as an energy source, then there has to be some responsibility for developing clean methods. If the methods are expensive, then so be it. Perhaps then green methods might be more appealing.

Patricia1985 (not verified)

at 01:51 on October 15th, 2009

Coal burning plants are outsides to the cites.coal burnings are polute the water and weather In industrial areas that supply large cities with power via coal burning there are clear increased water pollutants downstream.coal burning plants are many usefull and losses