Residents in Lithonia, Georgia, a suburban city located just outside Atlanta, successfully blocked a 20-acre biomass facility from locating in their community. Lithonia is 80 percent African American. The plant is a joint venture between a minority-owned firm called Green Energy Partners, Inc. and AECOM, the largest design-build firm in the world with clients in more than 100 countries.
The $50 million facility was first killed by the Lithonia City Council. It was later resurrected by an alternate site just outside the city limits--falling under the jurisdiction of the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners, who approved the plant in a 6-1 vote in July 2010. Construction on the plant is scheduled this month. T he DeKalb County plant will operate around the clock and is projected to burn more than 100,000 tons of yard waste -- wood chips from trees and leaves -- to generate 10 megawatts of electricity to power 7,000 homes. It plans to sell the electricity to the Georgia Power Co.
The biomass plant is projected to generate about $220,000 a year for DeKalb in revenues for DeKalb County government for the next 20 years. It is promoted as an economic development project since it will create 100 jobs during construction and 25 permanent positions, and add $50 million to the tax digest. However, Lithonia residents question whether 25 permanent jobs--that may or may not go to nearby residents--will be worth the health, environmental, and economic risks (impact on property values). They fear the 24-hour plant operation will bring harmful emissions, noise and unwanted truck traffic and diesel emissions to their community.
Residents who live near power plants must not only contend with potential exposure from the facilities but also face environmental health threats from truck traffic and vehicle emissions, especially diesel emissions from trucks. Diesel traffic emissions also impact indoor exposures. Long-term exposure to high levels of diesel exhausts (generally at the level of occupational exposure) increase risk of developing lung cancer. Diesel engine emissions contribute to serious public health problems, including premature mortality, aggravation of existing asthma, acute respiratory symptoms, chronic bronchitis, and decreased lung function. Diesel engine emissions have also been linked to increased incidences of various cancers in more than 30 health studies. Diesel particulate matter alone contributes to 125,000 cancers in the United States each year.
The average African American household emits 20 percent fewer greenhouse gases than its white counterparts. Yet, African Americans are being asked, or rather forced, to bear a disproportionate burden in hosting "dirty" energy plants. More than 68 percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant--the distance within which the maximum effects of the smokestack plume are expected to occur. In comparison, 56 percent of whites and 39 percent of Latinos live in such proximity to a coal-fired power plant. Over 35 million American children live within 30 miles of a power plant, of which an estimated 2 million are asthmatic. Coal-burning power plants are the major source of mercury pollution, a neurotoxin especially harmful to children and developing fetuses. About 8 percent of U.S. women of childbearing age are at risk from mercury pollution.
While Americans talk about a "green energy future," the continued siting of "dirty" coal-fired power plants raises some major environmental justice concerns. Nowhere is this disturbing trend more apparent than in Georgia. In 2009, African Americans made up 30.2 percent of Georgia's population. Two of the three (75%) proposed coal-fired power plants seeking permits in Georgia are located in majority black counties.
All three of the proposed coal-fired power plants are located in Georgia cities ranging from 49.6 percent black to 60.4 percent black. The proposed Georgia coal-fired plants include: Greenleaf Coal Power Plant in Blakely (60.4% black) in Early County (50.0 % black); Fitzgerald Power Plant near Fitzgerald (49.6% black) in Ben Hill County (32.6 % black) ; and the Washington County Plant near Sandersville (59.3% black) in Washington County (52.7% black). Clearly, Black Georgians shoulder a disproportionate burden of energy apartheid that's practiced in the state.
Recent proposals to jump-start the nuclear power industry have sparked debate and environmental justice concerns among African Americans. Georgia's mostly African American and poor communities are also being targeted for risky nuclear power plants. For example, the first nuclear power plants to be built in decades are being proposed in Georgia with an $8.3 billion federal loan guarantee. The loan guarantee will help the Atlanta-based Southern Company build two more nuclear reactors in the mostly African American Shell Bluff community in Burke County , GA . The county is 51.1 percent black. The two new reactors would each produce 1,000 megawatts, and would work with two existing reactors at a site near Waynesboro, GA (62.5% black).
Much more research is needed on energy apartheid nationally. More policy analysis is needed to clarify who gets what, when, and why, and where "green" and "clean" energy is headed and where the same old "dirty" energy plants are being proposed and sited across the country.
Talking about "going green" is very different from actually going green. Talk is cheap. The time is long overdue to put an end to "energy apartheid" in the United States--where "clean energy" is reserved for the more affluent white Americans and "dirty energy" targeted for poor and people of color.
Our Climate Justice Movement demands that clean, green, and renewable energy be made available to all Americans without regard to race, color, national origin, or income. It is unlikely that we as a nation can achieve sustainability and a green energy future without addressing these equity issues. Too few African American elected officials and leaders from government, business, civil rights, faith-based, academia, and think tanks organizations are speaking out and against energy apartheid. We need a national summit that brings together diverse sectors and leaders from the African American community to develop a plan of action. This is the right thing to do. And this is the right time to do it. We must speak and do for ourselves and protect our communities if we are to be part of and reap the benefits, and not get left behind or on the sideline, of a clean energy future.
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