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The Columbus Dispatch
www.dispatch.com
Air pollution takes deadly toll in southeast Ohio, report
says
Monday, January 8, 2001
Residents of southeast Ohio towns are at greater risk for
pollution-related illnesses than those living in New York
City because of the coal-fired power plants around the Ohio
River Valley, according to environmental studies.
Each year, approximately 1,950 Ohioans die and another
1,250 are hospitalized because of power-plant soot and pollution,
according to a study by the national environmental group
Clean the Air. That statistic puts Ohio second in the nation
for deaths linked to pollution-related respiratory problems,
the Akron Beacon Journal reported yesterday.
New York's worst days of air pollution are more severe
than the ones in Marietta, but the Ohio River town has more
bad-air days each year, according to the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency.
Sustained exposure to air pollution causes most health
problems, experts say.
Representatives of the utilities say the health threats
posed by coal-burning plants have been exaggerated.
"No one has established what the problem is,'' Ralph
DiNicola, spokesman for Akron's FirstEnergy, told the newspaper.
Margaret Lazer, a Marietta resident who used to live in
New York, said her asthma got worse in Ohio.
"I definitely noticed a decrease in my comfort in
breathing,'' the 33- year-old artist said. "And it
affects my daily life much more.''
Although her exercise-induced asthma hadn't been a major
problem in the past, Lazer says she now uses an inhaler
and stays inside in hot, humid weather.
The pollution in the Marietta area is largely caused by
the "chemical soup'' from Ohio River Valley factories
and coal-burning utility plants, said Eric Fitch, director
of Marietta College's environmental- studies program and
a local activist.
Marietta sits between a pair of coal-burning plants, and
oil refineries and chemical plants are nearby. Some of the
biggest coal-burning power plants are upwind of the town's
15,000 residents.
"Not all the pollution from the Ohio Valley blows
to the East Coast,'' Fitch said. "It hits home here.
It hits us hard. . . . We get hammered from two states:
Ohio and West Virginia.''
Ozone poses another problem, according to a February report
by the Ohio Environmental Council and two other groups.
As with soot pollution, prolonged ozone exposure presents
major risks, said Dr. George Leikauf, professor of environmental
health at the University of Cincinnati.
Power-plant emissions can cause breathing problems from
soot and ozone, and mercury has been shown to cause neurological
and developmental problems in babies and children.
The Beacon Journal, in the first part of a series on pollution
from coal-fired power plants, reported that Ohio utilities
have skirted the federal Clean Air Act for years, causing
many environmental and health problems.
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