Clean Air for the Birmingham Area

Metro Birmingham has evolved from a steel town into a thriving center of health care, research, and financial services, but its smokestacks and tailpipes continue to spew out emissions that make the air unhealthy to breathe. SELC has released a thorough assessment of the Birmingham region’s air quality problems and what local citizens and their leaders can do to combat pollution that’s taking a significant toll on their health and prosperity.

The report, Clean Air for the Birmingham Area, provides for the first time a comprehensive overview of the multiple pieces of Birmingham’s air-pollution challenge. Presented in layman’s terms to help engage the broader community in understanding and solving the problem, the report identifies the major sources of Birmingham’s air pollution and recommends ways to reduce it while ensuring a strong economy and a vibrant quality of life.

The Problem:

• The American Lung Association ranks metro Birmingham 5th in the country for soot (particle pollution), worse than industrial hubs such as Detroit and larger urban centers such as Atlanta.
• More than 17 percent of Alabama teens between 15 and 18 suffer from asthma, a condition worsened and sometimes caused by ozone pollution. The ailment costs Alabama tens of millions of dollars each year in lost productivity.
• Mercury from power plants and other sources becomes toxic in surface waters. Due to high mercury levels, Alabama health officials have placed restrictions on eating fish from 36 water bodies in the region, including Opossum Creek, Valley Creek, and Lewis Smith Reservoir.
• Alabama ranks 9th in the country for per capita emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, and the state’s carbon emissions are growing rapidly.

The Sources:

Three old coal-fired power plants: Gorgas (1951), Gaston (1960), and Miller (1978) are the primary sources of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which form soot pollution.
Even with pollution controls currently planned for these plants, they will still account for 89 percent of sulfur dioxides and 50 percent of nitrogen oxides in metro Birmingham in 2012.

The three plants are also the primary source of the nitrogen oxides that make ozone; motor vehicles are responsible for a third of the other ingredient, volatile organic compounds.

And they  are the leading source of mercury emissions in the region. Miller ranked #1 in the country, emitting as much as 2,000 pounds a year. (About one gram of airborne mercury falling into a 20-acre lake can make the fish unsafe to eat.)

The Solutions:
 

• Ensure that Alabama Power installs and fully utilizes required pollution controls on nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and other harmful emissions from the three coal-fired power plants.
• Require concrete reductions in mercury emissions from the Miller, Gaston and Gorgas plants and other coal plants in the state.
• Require the counties that surround Birmingham to be part of a comprehensive cleanup of the region’s air.
• Pass state legislation mandating cuts in power plant emissions to supplement federal standards.
• Develop a long-range transportation plan that boosts mass transit and reduces driving and tailpipe emissions.
• Cut soot pollution from heavy-duty diesel engines.
• Make energy efficiency and renewable energy sources a top priority.