NEW TECHNOLOGY CUTS POLLUTION —If energy companies modernized their plants in Maryland, they would cut the pollution that forms smog, soot and mercury contamination by 90 percent.

MaryPIRG has helped pull together a coalition of 18 public health, environmental and religious groups, representing over 140,000 Marylanders, to support the Healthy Air Act. The legislation would clean up the oldest and dirtiest power plants in Maryland, significantly lowering air pollution. The coalition has organized town hall meetings around the state, mobilized its members, and generated extensive media attention.

Energy companies like Constellation Energy and Mirant Corp. capitalize on loopholes in the law that allow their oldest plants to avoid installing modern pollution controls. By not modernizing the oldest plants, energy companies earn extra profits from the lowest-cost plants while polluting above safe levels.

Power plants are the largest industrial source of air pollution in Maryland, and within the energy industry there are seven power plants that pollute far more than all other plants combined. Of the pollution from Maryland power plants, these seven plants alone emit 94 percent of the smog-forming pollution, 96 percent of the soot pollution, 83 percent of the global warming pollution, and 100 percent of the mercury pollution. These pollutants contribute to contamination of fish, breathing disorders, the dead zone in the bay and global warming.

“The technology to clean up coalfired power plants has been around for years,” said MaryPIRG’s Brad Heavner. “Some of the state-of-the-art technology we’re calling for was state-of-the-art in 1978. It’s past time to make energy companies clean up.”