While coal-fired power plants are notoriusly dirity, some are a lot worse than others. They are usually the older plants.
One that has long galled me is the old, but big, 4-corners power plant near the Four Corners area of Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. It spews its pall over the scenic canyonlands country and the Grand Canyon, and as the article indicates, is a prime example of environmental racism because it was imposed on an area with a lot of poor Native Americans (along with still other coal plants, strip mines, and leaky natural gas wells).
Story. 50 Dirtiest Power Plants. ENS
post 1384
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Let’s convert these to nuclear power plants.
It’s a testament to the power of natural systems that the area around southern Lake Michigan still thrives after about 100 years of some of the heaviest industry anywhere on the planet -as far as I know. I’m referring to the northern Indiana plant and the surrounding region. Most of the big steel mills of the south side of Chicago are long gone, but there are still big ones in Gary and Burns Harbor, Indiana as well as big refineries in Whiting and East Chicago, Indiana. Nonetheless, that whole area still attracts a lot of wildlife. Of course it attracts industry too and now there’s a controversy surrounding a permit for BP to expand and start dumping even more sludge into the lake. The resilience of the ecosystem there is nothing short of remarkable. At least that gives me hope. It’s not canyonlands in the 4 corners though. I would say they are probably a lot more fragile.
As an afterthought I can only imagine the splendor the area I’m referring to above used to possess. It’s all but gone now. We wouldn’t have won WW2 without those steel mills. Yet, because of its location, wildlife still use it heavily to this day. It’s a unique place. It has been a favorite hunting ground of native Americans for thousands of years and Abe Lincoln was fond of it too. Hopefully one day it can be restored to some semblance of its former glory.