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Whew: No dirty air designations in the Saginaw Valley

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(MI) The Mudpuppy – The Saginaw Valley is meeting standards for fine particulate matter, the soot from coal-fired energy and other fossil fuel burning that can cause health problems and shorten your life. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently designated areas in Michigan and other Midwest states for not meeting daily standards for PM 2.5, or airborne fine particles that are less than 2.5 microns in size. Michigan counties that didn’t meet the standard are Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, St. Clair, Washtenaw and Wayne, EPA officials said. More

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Parks smoking ban justified

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(MI) Traverse City Record Eagle –  It’s not Traverse City’s job to enact smoking bans in order to encourage healthy lifestyles or make sure adults don’t set a bad example for impressionable teens. But it is the city’s job to enact smoking bans to ensure public safety and health on public property. And that must include a smoking ban in city parks. More

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Refitted to Bury Emissions, Plant Draws Attention

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(NY) The New York Times – Poking out of the ground near the smokestacks of the Mountaineer power plant here are two wells that look much like those that draw natural gas to the surface. But these are about to do something new: inject a power plant’s carbon dioxide into the earth. A behemoth built in 1980, long before global warming stirred broad concern, Mountaineer is poised to become the world’s first coal-fired power plant to capture and bury some of the carbon dioxide it churns out. More

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U.S. EPA launches detailed study of Cleveland-area air quality

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(OH) Cleveland Plain-Dealer – Fifteen feet above the pavement at Broadway and Orange Avenue, a white-metal battalion of computerized monitors is measuring and analyzing our dirty downtown skies as never before.  

More than a dozen humming machines — half of them the city of Cleveland’s existing equipment, the other half installed last month by U.S. EPA researchers — stand in tight formation across a new wooden deck atop the R.T. Craig building. More

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Buses May Aid Climate Battle in Poor Cities

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(NY) The New York Times – Rapid transit systems may hold a key to combating climate change. Emissions from cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles in the booming cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America account for a rapidly growing component of heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. While emissions from industry are decreasing, those related to transportation are expected to rise more than 50 percent by 2030 in industrialized and poorer nations. And 80 percent of that growth will be in the developing world, according to data presented in May at an international conference in Bellagio, Italy, sponsored by the Asian Development Bank and the Clean Air Institute. More

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Great Lakes lawmakers ask EPA for answers on BP emissions

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(MI) Detroit Free Press – Members of Congress’ Great Lakes Caucus are asking the Environmental Protection Agency to review all of British Petroleum’s emissions, after reports that a BP facility in Whiting, Ind., has been violating clean-air standards. In a letter, 18 members of Congress from Illinois, New York, Wisconsin and Michigan asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to closely examine BP’s emissions. More

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Analysis Finds Elevated Risk From Soot Particles in the Air

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(NY) The New York Times – A new appraisal of existing studies documenting the links between tiny soot particles and premature death from cardiovascular ailments shows that mortality rates among people exposed to the particles are twice as high as previously thought. Dan Greenbaum, the president of the nonprofit Health Effects Institute, which is releasing the analysis on Wednesday, said that the areas covered in the study included 116 American cities, with the highest levels of soot particles found in areas including the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles and the Central Valley of California; Birmingham, Ala.; Atlanta; the Ohio River

Land

BP faces new heat from feds over plant

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(IL) The Chicago Tribune – BP is facing new questions about its Whiting refinery from federal environmental regulators, who accused the company Thursday of starting a project to process heavy Canadian oil three years before it obtained the necessary permit. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited the Midwest’s largest refinery with significantly increasing air pollution linked to asthma, heart disease and early deaths as a result of the project, though the agency did not quantify the amount.Regulators said BP’s actions are troublesome because northwest Indiana, like other parts of the Chicago area, already violates federal standards for harmful smog and soot pollution. The complaint comes a year after the Tribune reported that Indiana regulators had allowed BP to dump more water pollution into Lake Michigan from its Whiting refinery, about 15 miles southeast of downtown Chicago. More

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S.S. Badger must stop dumping ash by 2012

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(MI) Ludington Daily News – Ludington’s S.S. Badger is lauded, revered and adored for its uniqueness as the last operating coal-fired passenger ship in the United States. On the other, it faces environmental regulation for that very reason – coal, or, in this case, a coal-burning waste product, ash. With coal burning comes waste, emissions through the stack – specifically exempt from regulation by Wisconsin and Michigan state law – but also an ash slurry that is dumped daily into Lake Michigan. That ash discharge used to be considered normal operating procedure for coal-fired vessels. A 1973 portion of the U.S. Clean Water Act – when there were still more than 50 coal-fired vessels operating – stated discharges like the Badger’s, which are “incidental to normal operations,” were allowed.

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Michigan releases air quality report for public comment

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(MI) Bay City Times – The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has released an air quality monitoring plan for public comment.  The report interprets past air monitoring data to determine which air pollutants will be measured at what site locations during the upcoming year and beyond. The Annual Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Network Review is available on the DEQ Web site at www.michigan.gov/deqair. Public comment will be accepted until 5:00 p.m. June 22. More