in this week's Weekender, Sioux City's alternative weekly.


Sierra Club slams Bush admin's pollution record
By Casandra Peck
07/01/04
Calling on voters to "Hold Polluters Accountable," with slogans like "Clean
Energy Not Dirty Secrets," and "Big Oil and Clean Water Don't Mix," Sierra
Club members protested the Bush Administration's failure to protect the
environment by weakening clean air and water acts.
They did so in a protest last Friday as Vice President Dick Cheney spoke to
throngs of Republican backers at Morningside College.
The Sierra Club, the oldest and largest grass roots advocacy group in the
country, is especially worried about mercury pollution in Sioux City and the
region caused by coal-fired power plants owned by MidAmerican Energy.
Mercury pollution, most commonly found in contaminated fish and shellfish,
is mostly a risk to children and pregnant women, causing damage to the
nervous and digestive systems. According to the Centers for Disease Control
(CDC), one in six women in the U.S. of child-bearing age has enough mercury
in her blood to be harmful to a developing fetus.
Sioux City's power plants, two of the largest in the state, alone gave off
an estimated 634 pounds of mercury in 2002. This and other coal-plant
emissions cause as many as 47 premature deaths in Siouxland, according to
the organization Clear the Air.
The Sierra Club says the solution to the mercury pollution problem is
simple. An EPA plan involving the Clean Air Act and technology would have
cut mercury pollution by 90 percent by the year 2008. However, the Bush
administration replaced it with a plan of its own to cut pollution by 70
percent by 2018.
"Thirty years of environmental progress has taught us that there is a better
way," says Tarah Heinzen, conservation organizer for the Sierra Club.
"That's why Sierra Club members are here - to ask the Bush Administration to
enforce the Clean Air Act; to hold polluters responsible for the damage they
do; and to protect public health and our environment by investing in modern
technology for a cleaner future."
Since coal-fired power plants give off more mercury pollution than any other
source, it is important that power plant operators employ new technology to
cut the amount of pollution. "America has made great progress cleaning soot
and smog from our air, pollution from our water and toxic chemicals from our
communities," says Heinzen. "But the Bush Administration's commitment to
19th century energy technology has put that progress in peril and Iowa's
communities at risk."
Find more at www.sierraclub.org <http://www.sierraclub.org>.

http://www.siouxland.net/index.cfm?cat=57&artid=4161

Tarah Heinzen
Sierra Club Conservation Organizer
3839 Merle Hay Road, Suite 280
Des Moines, IA 50310
(515) 251-3995
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