Perkins friends - an opportunity for environmental activism with the Dallas Sierra Club. They are seeking participants in upcoming an EPA Public Hearing in Oklahoma City on Thursday, January 15th. They are offering Dallas area residents an opportunity to take a free bus to Oklahoma City. It leaves from the Walmart at Midway on the North side of LBJ at 10:30 am on Jan. 15th. The hearing starts at 5 pm with a rally at 4:30 pm. Lunch and dinner will be provided. The bus should be back between 10:30-11:00 pm. For more information, contact Rita Beving at 214.557.2271 or email her at rita.beving@gmail. Heres the pitch: Our national parks and wildlife refuges are American treasures that have long provided memories and adventures for many locals and visitors in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. But thick smog from haze pollution is clouding our state’s remarkable vistas and dramatically reducing visibility. Hikers who enjoy trekking to the top of mountains can forget taking scenic photos – that is, unless they want a heavy gray filter added. What we can do, however, is tell the Environmental Protection Agency they don’t want haze to cloud the horizon.The EPA is holding hearings in Austin and Oklahoma City for this purpose, where many plan to testify -- property owners near Big Bend, tourism and national park employees, health professionals, faith leaders, parents and more. There’s a lot more at stake when it comes to haze pollution. For years, the state of Texas has been releasing alarming amounts of haze pollution into the air, with more than 365,500 tons of sulfur dioxide emitted in 2013 alone, according to federal Environment Protection Agency data. This is a serious public health threat. Coal plants in Texas emit more pollution than coal plants in any other state, but our pollution blows over state lines into Oklahoma and Arkansas, affecting their wilderness areas and obstructing views. Even though the Clean Air Act requires states to address haze pollution, the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality submitted a do-nothing plan in 2009 that wouldn’t have cleared the skies over Big Bend for another 140 years. The good news is the EPA has recently rejected that plan and proposed to cut Texas’ coal-burning pollution by more than 228,000 tons, almost two-thirds of the total amount of sulfur dioxide emitted by all the states power plants. This will protect natural visibility in our beloved parks and refuges, and it’s an important protection for our health. The EPA’s new regional haze rule is what is driving people to testify in Austin on the 13th and OKC on Jan. 15th and provide comments through February: We want clean, visible air. There are several improvements that could be made such as adding requirements to the North East Texas coal plants and instead of just proposing for coal plants to comply in pollution reduction, the best option would be to phase out the use of coal and ramp up clean energy: wind and solar. Phasing out the coal plants will help with more than just regional haze, but also with lowering the levels of ozone smog in our cities and reducing climate disrupting carbon pollution. For example, the 14 coal boilers covered by the regional haze rule emit 35% of the ozone-causing NOx pollution from all the 121 power plants in Texas. In addition, the 14 coal boilers covered by the regional haze proposal emit 26% of the carbon emissions from all the power plants in Texas. Just replacing these 14 coal boilers with clean energy would get the state 2/3 of the way to meeting the EPAs target for carbon emissions from Texas of 39%.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 23:01:53 +0000
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