Our Chapter's Position

 

The Sierra Club believes that Pennsylvania must aggressively reduce the ozone and particulate pollution from its coal fired power plants.

 

Unfortunately, our state has been targeted by the industry as a “preferred location” for new coal-burning facilities and at least four new generating plants—Wellington, Shade, River Hill, and Beech Hollow—are in the permitting pipeline.

In addition, the state has been selected by Waste Management, Inc. as the site of a new liquid coal plant.

 

In response to the resurgence of coal in the state, the Sierra Club is working on several fronts and is currently part of a coalition fighting to halt the construction of a proposed 525-megawatt, waste coal plant in Nemacolin.

Map Data Source

USEPA eGRID2006 Version 2.1 (Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database) Data current through 2004.

 

Map commissioned by the Pennsylvania Chapter.

Mapping coal-fired emissions

 

As shown on the map below, our state's residents are not only exposed to emissions from our 38 coal-fired plants, but are down-wind of dozens of regional coal plants in Ohio and West Virginia.

Given this, it's not surprising that Pittsburgh has the dubious distinction of having the worst air quality in the nation, and that five out of six Pennsylvanians live in metropolitan areas that received a failing grade for air quality.

In total, eighteen of our state’s twenty-one graded counties received an “F” for short-term levels of pollution.