http://cbs2chicago.com/wireapnewsil/Chicago.lawmakers.push.2.1629376.html
Associated Press | April 14, 2010 | MICHAEL TARM
CHICAGO (AP) Chicago lawmakers proposed new clean air regulations Tuesday
that they say would be among the toughest in the nation and curb emissions
from the city's two coal-burning power plants.
Advocates say the two large plants, set in heavily populated South Side
neighborhoods, long have been among the city's worst polluters, pumping out
thousands of tons of soot and millions of tons of gases linked to global
warming.
The ordinance would require the Fish and Crawford plants to cut particulate
emissions by 90 percent from existing levels by installing modern pollution
controls.
"When this legislation passes, Chicago will do what no other large city in
America has had the guts to do: Clean up a dirty power plant within its
jurisdiction," said Joe Moore, a Chicago alderman and one of the architects
of the proposed ordinance.
Chicago is the only large U.S. city with two coal-driven power stations
within its city limits, creating a greater potential threat to the
environment and public health, environmentalists say. The plants haven't
been subject to more stringent rules imposed on newer plants because they
were built before the Clean Air Act.
The plants emit more than 14,300 tons of soot and other air pollutants each
year, contributing to high rates of asthma and other maladies among
Chicago-area residents, said Brian Urbaszewski, of the Respiratory Health
Association of Metropolitan Chicago.
"Why should people wait patiently when they are becoming patients?"
Urbaszewski said. "We need clean air now."
The plants also are two of the city's largest contributors of greenhouse gas
emissions, releasing nearly 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere in 2007 - the equivalent of the emissions of 870,000 cars,
according to the Chicago Clean Power Coalition.
"The soot and the particulates don't stop at ward borders, they go across
the entire city, they go across the Midwest, they go across the entire
world," said Alderman Scott Waguespack, another supporter of the ordinance.
He and other advocates said city action is needed because existing state and
federal regulations aren't stringent enough.
But the owner of the plants, Chicago-based Midwest Generation, said the
ordinance is unnecessary because it has reduced many emissions since buying
the plants 10 years ago, including cutting nitrogen oxides by 60 percent,
and it plans further steps over coming months and years.
"The proposed ordinance is a solution in search of a problem," company
spokesman Douglas McFarlan said in a written statement. "Not only is it
unnecessary and misguided - it's essentially intended to force the closure
of two power plants that help maintain a reliable supply of electricity."
The plants generate enough power to provide electricity to 1 million homes,
according to Midwest Generation.
About 100 environmental activists gathered in a hallway near Chicago Mayor
Richard M. Daley's office Tuesday to call for passage of the ordinance,
several holding placards reading, "Clean Energy Now" and "Close Crawford and
Fisk."
Daley hasn't yet said whether he supports the ordinance, and Environment
Commissioner Suzanne Malec-McKenna did not immediately return a phone
message Tuesday.
But Moore pointed to the mayor's 2008 commitment to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions to three-fourths of 1990 levels by 2020.
"To be consistent, he should be in full support of this ordinance," Moore
said. "This ordinance will put Chicago on the map and cement its reputation
as the greenest city in America."
