Attention!! Anyone who uses Oxygen to stay alive...Read This!

So it isn't very often I get involved in political issues, but this one makes me mad and worried about Ashlyn's future. Our kids are going to pay for this in the long run.

Last night, Melanie and I went to the meeting regarding the Petroleum Coke plant that the Holly Refinery wants to build to burn off the leftover waste from the crude oil processing. The meeting was put on by the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. Utah is 3rd in the Nation for the worst air quality and they want to add more pollution to our city. This doesn't only effect Woods Cross, but it effects all surrounding cities as the pollutants will last in the air. The doctors said that this will span along the entire Wasatch Front as far as Draper! Currently this waste is being sent to China.

Holly Refinery and Consolidated Energy have tried to keep this from the public and rush it through on a State level in order to avoid having to get approval from the city. They also want it approved before the Environmentalist Reform that will be taking place once President Obama is in office on January 20th. They also want this plant so that they can save money and show a larger profit increase to their shareholders. They aren't taking into consideration the increase in health problems we will face as well as the increase in health care costs that we will have to pay for.

I have to say I was shocked at the major health risks that come from this sort of plant in our neighborhood. This plant will produce 1 MILLION POUNDS of pollution each year. These Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAP) are worse than living in a home and breathing second hand smoke for your entire life. It shortens our life by 2 years. HAP's also cause an increase in the level of lead in a child and adults blood as well as lowers the I.Q. Level of our children and causes Brain Shrinkage. In our area we have an increased amount of Asthma, SIDS, Infant Death, Autism, Cancer, decreases lung function which can lead to permanent damage, and causes other mental retardation and nervous system damage. These chemicals are also 100 times greater in a mother's breast milk. These pollutants are also causing many problems with developing fetus' which cause low birth rate, birth defects, reproductive effects and mutations.

One of the doctors said, "This is like lighting a giant cigarette and letting it burn 24/7, 365 days a year. We are not an ash tray"

Another point is that currently the levels of pollution from these plants are not being regulated on a regular basis. And if this plant goes in, our property values are going to decrease again.

So what can we do??? Can we really make a difference?

• We start by attending the meeting that is scheduled this coming Tuesday, January 13th at 6:30pm at the Department of Air Quality (DAQ), 168 North 1950 West, Room 101, SLC

This is the meeting where we tell them we don't want this in our backyards. If you want to carpool down, let me know!

• Then we need to contact our State Legislators, Congressmen, Senators, and Governor.

One of the doctors said if the Legislators receive 5 phone calls on 1 issue they know it is a problem in the area. If the Congressmen, Senators, and Governor receive 10 phone calls on 1 issue they know it is a problem for the majority of the people and they do something about it.

• We also need to e-mail the project manager of DAQ and tell him we don't want this. His name is John Jenks, phone: 801-536-4459 and e-mail: jjenks@utah.gov

So here is the contact information for all of the above representatives:

Governor Huntsman: 801-538-1000 or http://governor.utah.gov/goca/form_governor.html

Local State Legislators: Roger Barrus rogerbarrus@utah.gov and Becky Edwards and Richard Siddoway and Dan Liljenquist danliljenquist@yahoo.com

U.S. Senators: Bob Bennett http://bennett.senate.gov/contact/emailmain.html

and Orin Hatch http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Offices.Contact

U.S. Congressmen: Rob Bishop http://robbishop.house.gov/ContactMe/

Jim Matheson https://forms.house.gov/matheson/contact_sec.shtml

Chris Cannon cannon.ut03@mail.house.gov

At the meeting they handed out postcards for us to mail to Governor Huntsman, but I think it would be good to put in your e-mails. Here it is:

Dear Governor Huntsman:

Consolidated Energy is seeking a permit to build a 109-megawatt, petroleum coke-fired power plant in Woods Cross, Utah. If Approved, the plant would emit a million pounds of air pollution annually in our already impaired air shed. Poor air quality endangers everyone, particularly children, the elderly, and those with respiratory problems. Furthermore, this plant would contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and diminish our environment.

Utahns want clean, renewable energy, not dirty power. Wind and geothermal projects in our state are already proving themselves as viable. Please protect public health and our planet by stopping the issuance of this permit. Our future deserves better.

Sincerely,

And below is the article that was in today's Salt Lake Tribune:

Power plant opponents vow to fight on

By Judy Fahys
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 01/08/2009 10:06:04 PM MST

Determination to stop more pollution from being pumped into their skies appeared to galvanize Davis County residents Thursday against a new industrial power plant planned for West Bountiful.

"What can we really do?" asked Bountiful doctor Clark Hilbig to neighbors jammed into a Woods Cross meeting room. "We have to make laws. We have to raise a stink. ... How do we stop this rather than just talking about it?"

The first step, agreed many of the nearly 200 assembled, is to raise their concerns with state regulators at a public hearing on the plant Tuesday.

The Division of Air Quality says it intends to give Consolidated Energy Systems LLC a pollution permit for a 109-megawatt power plant at 400 S. 1100 West, West Bountiful. The plant would produce power for the adjacent Holly Refinery and use "dirtier-than-coal" waste petroleum from the refinery as fuel.

Consolidated will compensate for the dirty fuel by using a robust, five-stage pollution-control system -- a system that helps keep the plant well within state and federal pollution restrictions and gives state regulators no grounds to reject the permit.

Locals still don't want the plant. And West Bountiful Mayor James Behunin publicly doubted this week whether his community would be willing to grant the building permit and rezoning that would be needed to accommodate the plant.

Opposition strengthened at Thursday night's meeting, an information session hosted by the
Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment on the plant's potential health impacts.
Members of the doctors' group shared their estimate that 20 people a year would die prematurely because of the plant's emissions if it were to be built. They told how children would suffer numerous respiratory and neurological risks because of the hazardous heavy metals and other toxic pollutants the plant will release into the air.

Brian Moench, founder and president of the doctors' group, urged people to contact their lawmakers and help change the law to allow health issues to be accounted for in future permit decisions. He compared allowing the proposed plant to forcing everyone in proximity to breathe secondhand cigarette smoke.
"We have a moral responsibility to our children," he said, "not to allow Bountiful and Woods Cross to become one big ashtray."

An engineer who has worked on the proposal, David A. Kopta, pointed to state documents that showed emissions from the new plant would be around one-third of one percent of the regulated air pollution in Davis County.

"People who are concerned about air quality should focus on mobile sources, cars and trucks," he said. "That's where they'll get the biggest bang for their buck. This [plant] isn't going to be that bad of a problem."

But Woods Cross resident Julie Checketts, a mother who recently suffered an unexplained miscarriage, challenged the idea the harm was negligible. "Add another" pollution source? she asked him. "That's ridiculous."

Checketts and her girls-night-out group plan to caravan to next Tuesday's public hearing.
State regulators plan a public hearing on the plant's pollution permit on Tuesday January 13, 6:30, in DEQ Room 101, 168 N. 1950 West, Salt Lake City. Only after they hear from the public can the regulators complete their review of the plant. While regulators say the proposal falls well within state and national pollution standards, activists and the community say they don't want to make the air any dirtier.