Power the Future—How?
By Nancy Hennessy

WE Energies (formerly Wisconsin Electric / Wisconsin Gas) is proposing a
massive building project of coal and natural gas fired plants that will
add 2,800 megawatts of electricity by the year 2012. They call their
plan Power the Future—Now. The good news: The old coal fired plants in
Port Washington will be replaced with clean burning natural gas fired
plants. The bad news: In Oak Creek three new coal fired plants would be
added to the ones already operating there. No changes are planned to
reduce emissions in the existing plants. Of WE Energies’ power plants,
nearly half of all toxic air emissions (mercury, lead, arsenic, uranium,
etc.) come from the Oak Creek plant. Under the Clean Air Act their
“grandfathered” status exempts them from complying with modern emission
standards.

The first two plants added at the Oak Creek site would be 1960’s
technology pulverized coal plants. The third would be a newer IGCC
(gasified coal) plant. WE Energies points out that these three new coal
plants would be less polluting than the ones already operating at Oak
Creek. True, but even so, according to figures taken from their proposal
and from the EPA, nitrogen oxide emissions would increase from 11,285 to
15,478 tons per year and sulfur dioxide emissions from 43,310 to 56,951
tons per year. This increase in emissions would be a step backward at a
time when we have been seeing gradually improving air quality in our
corner of the state.

Last May a report by the American Lung Association based on data
collected by the U.S. EPA gave five southeastern Wisconsin counties,
including Racine, an “F” for air quality. According to that report more
than 79,000 residents in Racine County are particularly vulnerable to
the effects of ozone. Of that number 51.6% were children younger than 14
who are at increased risk for respiratory problems from ozone because
they typically play outside longer, increasing their exposure to high
ozone concentration. During my teaching years I saw an increasing number
of children with asthma. It was becoming not uncommon for children to
have inhalers at school.

And what about the increase in the fine soot particles that will be
released into the air? Recent studies (Brigham Young University and NYU)
report that long term exposure to the air pollution in urban areas
significantly raises the risk of dying from lung cancer. The risk arises
from combustion related fine particulate matter—soot, emitted by cars,
trucks, factories and coal fired power plants. Larry Bruss, chief of the
ozone section in the Bureau of Air Management in the Wisconsin DNR says
that particulate concentrations in Milwaukee are currently not in
violation of standards, but are very, very close. WE Energies says that
although more costly than gas to build, coal plants are cheaper to run.
Who will bear the costs of increased incidence of emphysema, bronchitis,
asthma and lung cancer?

So, power the future—how? Ideally, the old coal plants at Oak Creek
should be replaced with cleaner natural gas plants. In the not too
distant future natural gas pipe lines will make natural gas fired power
plants a possibility for us here in Southeastern Wisconsin. Gas fired
plants emit 90% less nitrogen oxide, almost no sulfur dioxide and none
of the toxic pollutants (mercury,lead, arsenic, uranium, etc.) that are
emitted with coal combustion.

The final decision on WE Energies’ plan for the Oak Creek plant will
ultimately be made by the PSC. If you would like to add your voice to a
local group that is working on this issue contact Citizens for
Responsible Power, P.O. Box 044333, Racine, WI 53404, (262) 939-7398, 
c_r_power@msn.com.

 
Calendar

June 6, 7:00 p.m.: Conservation Committee Meeting at Berges, 1529
Crabapple Dr. in Racine. Contact John Berge, (262) 633-8455.

June 12, 4:00 p.m.: Bike Ride. Meet at Carthage College at the
Northernmost Parking Lot near Sheridan Road. Bike to Kenosha Harbor and
eat at Common Grounds located at 5159 6th Ave. Kenosha. Bike through
Kenosha Harbor if desired. Contact Millie Carlson at (262) 652 -8121.

June 13, 7:00 p.m.: ExCom meeting at Messiah Lutheran Church, corner of
Durand Avenue and Pritchard Drive in Racine.

June 20 - 6:00 p.m.: Regular membership meeting and picnic at Chiwaukee
Prairie on 2nd Ave. and 121st at the kiosk at 5:30 p.m. Bring your lawn
chair, a dish to pass, and your dinnerware.

July 1: Deadline for the August-September issue of the Southeast
Sierran.

August 16?18: Camping at S. Lake East of Park Falls Wisconsin Hwy 182.
Contact Mary Ann Ortmayer at (262) 554-5058 for more details.



Recipes Wanted!
September 1 deadline:

As a fundraiser, the Southeast Gateway Group (SEGG) of the Sierra Club
is going to create a cookbook. We would like everyone, members or
nonmembers, to send us recipes. They can be camping recipes or your home
kitchen favorites.

We will also try to get recipes from local restaurants for a third
division in the cookbook.

Please send recipes to: Nita Larson, 1512 Chatham Street, Racine, WI,
53402. We hope to get the cookbook started soon, so hurry, hurry, hurry!
We have received only a few recipes so far! We need a minimum of 75. We
must have sufficient recipes by September 1 in order to proceed.


Green Award
By Barry Thomas

The 2002 Green Award has been given to Badger High School students Cami
Polek and James Stone. The award of $100 will be used to help pay for
their registration at the Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots and Shoots
program in San Francisco from May 10?14. They presented their
environmental class’s projects at the convention. The class projects
include:
1. raising money to provide animals to poor villages so they can live a
more sustainable life style.
2. selling environmental t-shirts to purchase nine acres of Panamanian
rainforest for protection.
3. collecting, processing and germinating native grass and wildlife
seeds for transplanting into study plots at Four Seasons Nature Preserve

4. removing exotic weeds and brush from the Four Seasons Nature
Preserve.
5. cleaning up of an “Adopt A Highway” section of highway 120.
6. building wren and bluebird houses.
7. stenciling 48 city storm drains with “Dump No Waste-Drains to Lake”.

Congratulations to Cami and James and their classmates in Mr. Bruce
Peacock’s Environmental Science class at Badger High School for all
they have done to promote environmental awareness and quality in their
community and the world.


From the Chair:

You will notice that this issue of the newsletter contains a request for
contributions. As we all have experienced, costs are increasing.
Although our group does receive a portion of the dues you pay to the
Club, our portion is very small: semi-annually less than the cost to
publish one issue of this newsletter.

The Southeast Gateway Group has over 700 members. A contribution from
each of you will ensure that our group continues to be an effective
voice for the environment in our part of the state. Please take a moment
to express your support by making a financial contribution.
Thank you. Dana Huck

Commuter Rail News
By Jay Warner

The Wisconsin DOT plans to rebuild the Marquette Interchange in
Milwaukee. A lot of people in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha tremble at
the thought of constricting this section of freeway in Wisconsin for
four years. We need the KRM (Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee) Commuter rail to
help mitigate traffic congestion. In the next weeks I’ll be getting
specific information on how we can ensure that the KRM Commuter rail
line is part of the mitigation project. Stay tuned, and keep in touch
with an email to me at quality@a2q.com.

Meanwhile, a group of Sierrans went to Chicago via Metra Saturday, 3/16,
to see the “Ansel Adams at 100” exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago
Museum. Benefits of this transportation mode:

a) no nervous strain driving in Chicago.
b) we read, studied, and chatted each way.
c) nobody juggled steering wheels and cell phones simultaneously.
d) no hassles for parking space.
e) travel time compared well with driving.
Disadvantages included:
f) Melissa and I had commitments at home on Sunday, so we couldn’t use
our weekend pass tickets to the max.
g) If we didn’t catch the 4:30 p.m. train, we would have joined the St.
Patrick’s Day revelers waiting until 5:30 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. for the next
train.

Full weekend tickets were $5 each; car parking was $1. We walked from
the Metra station to the Art Museum. By contrast, the MacArthur Park
Garage parking approaches $10 on Saturday. The round trip to Chicago is
about $35.00 at IRS personal car rates.

Wouldn’t you prefer this method for getting to Milwaukee, day in and day
out? Support the KRM Commuter rail proposal, linking Kenosha with
Racine, Oak Creek, Cudahy and Milwaukee. Not to mention Chicago.


Report Projects 6,000 Premature Deaths From Just Eight Utilities
By John Berge

With plans grinding forward to build three new coal-powered electricity
generating plants just north of the Racine/Milwaukee County line, it
behooves us to look closely at a study prepared by Abt Associates, one
of the Environmental Protection Agency’s primary technical consultants
on clean air. The report was released in April by Eric Schaeffer who
recently resigned as chief of civil enforcement for the EPA in a dispute
over the Bush Administration’s failure to enforce Clean Air Act (CAA)
requirements on upgraded power plants.

The report predicts that the 81 coal-fired power plants run by eight
utility companies which had been cited by the Justice Department in 1999
and 2000 for violating the Clean Air Act will lead to almost 6,000
premature deaths, 140,000 asthma attacks and 14,000 acute bronchitis
cases every year!

The calculations are based on likely emissions in 2007, even including
anticipated reduced emissions under the current acid rain program, and
are based on modeling from health data collected nationwide, and the
known link between emissions and respiratory illness. Schaeffer said
that the study was done with “the most conservative numbers in the range
of possible assumptions” and still came up with almost 6,000 deaths. It
did not include any effects of ground level ozone which may also be
generated by these plants.

The 81 power plants included in the report were exempted from the new
construction provisions of the Clean Air Act because they were all built
or planned before 1973. However, under the CAA’s new source review
provisions, facilities which add new capacity or other upgrades must
comply with all relevant CAA regulations. The eight utilities included
in the report have all been cited by the EPA under the Clinton
Administration for modifying their older plants to produce more
electricity without installing the required emissions control equipment.

When Bush became President, he ordered a 90-day review of the new source
review provision, which took eight months, and resulted in the
continuation of the law suits started under the Clinton administration
but changed the atmosphere in Washington in such a way that no final
agreements have been reached with any of the eight cited utilities…they
have left the bargaining table. This led Schaeffer to say in his letter
of resignation that the EPA “was snatching defeat from the jaws of
victory”.

The 90-day review, the energy hearings conducted by Vice-President
Chaney and the large contributions from the fossil fuel and power
generating industries all have led to Bush’s so-called “Clear Skies
Initiative” and a drafting of revised EPA regulations to promote
voluntary efforts to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides
and mercury and discourage federal lawsuits against the power companies.
Schaeffer, the Sierra Club and others have all said that the Clear Skies
Initiative will not remove pollution from electric power plants anywhere
near as fast or as well as would enforcement of the Clean Air Act.

The complete Abt report is available at: www.rffund.org.


Racine County Board Joins CREP — Eventually

On March 26, 2002, the Racine County Board voted to authorize Racine
County to enter into a contract with the Wisconsin Department of
Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) for participation in
the Wisconsin Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), but it
wasn’t easy. The County Board had originally voted 16-14 not to
participate in this program to use federal and state funds to reimburse
farmers and other property owners for the costs of putting some of their
land into conservation reserves. These funds are especially important in
the establishment of riparian buffer strips and establishing
conservation easements on other ecologically sensitive lands.

After that February vote, Betsy George, County Board Supervisor and a
Sierra Club member, called the Southeast Gateway Group Conservation
Chair, John Berge, and asked for the Sierra Club’s help in reversing
that decision. At the next County Board meeting, Berge spoke during the
comment period in favor of CREP and urged the Board to reconsider. He
was the only public citizen to speak on the issue, but the motion to
reconsider passed unanimously.

“Several other Board members spoke during the debate in favor of CREP
and reconsideration, so it is obvious that the Sierra Club didn’t do
this on its own, but the Sierra Club seemed to be held in high regard by
many of the Board Supervisors,” said Berge.

The motion to participate was laid over for two weeks while Supervisor
Richard Rehberg and County Executive Jean Jacobson contacted state and
federal officials about one of the strange inequities in the CREP plan
developed by DATCP and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
For some reason, all townships in Racine County were included in the
eligibility map except Rochester and Burlington. If riparian buffer
zones are so important, why include Waterford, but exclude the two towns
downstream on the Fox River was a question raised by several
Supervisors.

Two weeks later, with only vague promises of possibly revising the map
after all counties have had the chance to join or not, the Racine County
Board voted 28-1 to participate. At the last count, Walworth County had
also voted to participate, but Kenosha County did not.