News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 14, 2002
CONTACT:    Leslie Segal, MontPIRG (406)243-2908


A new study released today by MontPIRG titled Children at Risk: How Air Pollution from Power Plants Threatens the Health of America’s Children finds that 47,746 children in Montana live in the shadows of old, dirty coal-fired power plants.  These children are exposed to pollutants that cause a host of health problems, from asthma attacks to neonatal death and slowed neurological development.  Of these children living near power plants, 2,553 suffer from asthma.  Even worse, one study suggests that it may be unhealthy for children in some areas to participate in outdoor sports.

“Right now, kids in Montana are living near power plant smokestacks, and breathing air loaded with all sorts of hazardous pollution,” said Leslie Segal. “Parents have good reason to be concerned, and they deserve to get the facts.”

Over the past few years, numerous peer-reviewed studies have appeared in scientific journals clearly documenting how pollution from power plants has serious long-term health consequences for children.  However, too often this information has not reached the general public, and when it did it was not in a form accessible to parents.  Children at Risk, prepared by the Clean Air Task Force, provides parents up-to-date information about how pollution from power plants impacts their children.

Children at Risk details the dangers of breathing power plant emissions and the children that are at risk, including how:

• Dangerous “particulate matter” pollution can lead to neonatal death, cause serious health impacts such as asthma attacks, and slow lung function growth;
• Ozone smog may permanently damage and stunt developing lungs, triggering asthma attacks and possibly causing asthma;
• Air toxics like mercury and chromium can have devastating impacts on children and neonatal development, acting as carcinogens and neurotoxins; and
• Recent research suggests that children are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which is caused in part by greenhouse gases released from power plants.

In Montana, the report found that:

• 47, 746 children live within a 30-mile radius of a coal-fired power plant.
• 10, 760 of these children live in poverty.
• 2,553 of these children suffer from asthma, ranking Montana 41st in the nation.
• 163 schools are located within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, ranking Montana 39th in the nation.

“Children at Risk shows that our children’s health is at stake if we fail to clean up these plants, especially since we have the technology to do it,” said Dr. L. Bruce Hill, Senior Scientist at the Clean Air Task Force and author of the report.  “With a plan moving through Congress for a cleaner energy future, now is the time for parents to better understand the risks of air pollution on their children — and the ultimate cost of delayed action.”

Unfortunately, rather than taking immediate steps to solve this health threat to our kids, the Bush administration has proposed a major rollback of the New Source Review provision of the Clean Air Act, which requires power plants, refineries and other industries to install state-of-the-art pollution controls when they make major, pollution-increasing plant modifications. Each year this program has kept more than a million tons of air pollution out of our skies.

Meanwhile, however, the Clean Power Act, introduced in the Senate by Sen. Jim Jeffords, is expected to come to a vote in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee next week. This bill requires the industry to make dramatic reductions in all four of the major power plant pollutants, including the first-ever mandatory CO2 emission cap.  It also requires every power plant to meet modern emission limits

“We strongly urge Senator Baucus, who sits on the Environment and Public Works Committee, to vote for the Clean Power Act,” said Segal.

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MontPIRG is the state’s leading non-profit public interest advocacy organization.  For more information or to get more involved in the campaign, visit www.montpirg.org or call 406-243-2908.


TO VIEW THE REPORT ONLINE VISIT WWW.CLEARTHEAIR.ORG