Van Dam: Utahns can't afford the health cost of new coal-fired power plants

By Paul Van Dam

Article Last Updated: 09/05/2008 03:07:01 PM MDT

When I served as Utah's attorney general from 1989 to 1993, it was my sworn duty to protect things that matter to Utahns - their safety, their water, their property.
  

 Now, Utahns need to stand up and demand that their government protect something equally important: our air. What is happening to Utah's skies is an injustice, and the problem will only get worse if a fleet of proposed coal-fired power plants is built here and across the border - upwind - in Nevada.
 

   For many years, I called Salt Lake City home, but I moved to Ivins, near St. George, to find a place where I didn't have to worry about going out for a bike ride or jog without jeopardizing my health.
  

  Salt Lake Valley residents already know how bad the pollution can get, especially in winter when cold air sits like a lid on a bowl. It's beyond ugly. But if these new plants are built, we can count on it not only getting worse in cities but also oozing into parts of Utah where, at least for now, we still can breathe deeply without choking.

    In addition to coal's noxious emissions, we need to consider the very real consequences of global warming. The chatter of a few remaining naysayers notwithstanding, Utah already is feeling the heat. Our average annual snowpack continues to dwindle - a nice winter this year does not change that trend - threatening our vibrant ski and agricultural industries. Beetles are destroying our forests. Wildfires are burning more frequently and intensely. So why would we open the door for new coal-fired plants that emit millions of tons of CO2 every year?
 

   Concerned citizens need to get involved. It can be done. Look what happened in Texas, where a group of ranchers and farmers banded together in a grassroots effort to keep 19 new coal plants on the shelf, where they belong. They found common cause with lawyers, educators, religious groups, small-town councils and big-city mayors, business and conservation groups, and people from across Texas and the nation, none of whom wanted their communities blanketed by pollution or their children inhaling filthy air.
    Utahns can take a cue from their story when the documentary film "Fighting Goliath" is screened in seven cities here and in Nevada on Sept. 9.
    It won't be easy. Big Coal is a formidable adversary, and Utah gets 85-90 percent of its electricity from coal. But we don't need any more of it. Instead, we should put our sweat and creativity into developing affordable, reliable alternatives. The quickest, cheapest and smartest way to start is to use less electricity by becoming more efficient, and we should aggressively invest in efficiency programs.
 

   Beyond that, Utah is blessed with world-class sunshine for solar plants and bountiful potential for wind and geothermal development. We should take every opportunity to tap these endless supplies of clean electricity.
   

 It's telling that Utah's largest utility already has seen the light. Rocky Mountain Power decided last year that building new coal-fired plants is too risky and abandoned its plans for projects here and in Wyoming.

We should make sure that thinking filters to the entire state.

    Our air is bad enough already. We don't need more coal-fired plants making it worse, especially when clean energy makes them unnecessary. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, no more burning of coal in Utah is the right thing to do.
   
    PAUL VAN DAM, a native Utahn, served as Salt Lake County district attorney from 1974-78, and as Utah state attorney general from 1989-93. He now works as executive director of Citizens for Dixie's Future and resides in Ivins, Utah.