Farmers, pecan growers say coal plant kills plants

[cory777]

Source: Associated Press

BASTROP, Texas – Along a stretch of Highway 21, in Texas' pastoral Hill Country, is a vegetative wasteland. Trees are barren, or covered in gray, dying foliage and peeling bark. Fallen, dead limbs litter the ground where pecan growers and ranchers have watched trees die slow, agonizing deaths.

Visible above the horizon is what many plant specialists, environmentalists and scientists believe to be the culprit: the Fayette Power Project — a coal-fired power plant for nearly 30 years has operated mostly without equipment designed to decrease emissions of sulfur dioxide, a component of acid rain.

The plant's operator and the state's environmental regulator deny sulfur dioxide pollution is to blame for the swaths of plant devastation across Central Texas. But evidence collected from the Appalachian Mountains to New Mexico indicates sulfur dioxide pollution kills vegetation, especially pecan trees. Pecan growers in Albany, Ga., have received millions of dollars in an out-of-court settlement with a power plant whose sulfur dioxide emissions harmed their orchards.

Now, extensive tree deaths are being reported elsewhere in Texas, home to 19 coal-fired power plants — more than any other state. Four more are in planning stages. In each area where the phenomenon is reported, a coal-fired power plant operates nearby.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101228/ap_on_re_us/us_vegetative_wasteland_2

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UNCENSORED ACTIVIST NEWS http://activistnews.blogspot.com

[Loki]

1. I don't understand how this state can keep electing

Republican officials to non represent them. The loss of trees, water and clean air will continue until this state looks like the dead areas of the Gulf.

[MisterP]

6. well, that only works with Dems who aren't bought and paid for by corps and polluters nt

[hatrack]

2. Well, TX pecan growers, too bad you live where you do . . .

BTW, how's that GOP supermajority in the state legislature looking for the next two years?

[kentauros]

4. How about coming over to the Texas forum and discussing it with us?

Texas politics can get pretty weird, no matter who's in power. At the very least, it will be quite the show ;)

[Igel]

3. Probably a better story here.

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/is-power-plant-to-blame-for-poor-pecan-1101578.html?printArticle=y

Includes things like Hendrix saying he hasn't actually examined the plants or area and couldn't give testimony given his current knowledge, even though he's personally satisfied.

Some things in the Yahoo article are misleading. For example:
"The Lower Colorado River Authority, which operates the Fayette plant, argues there is no scientific link between its emissions and the dying trees, noting the region also has suffered significant droughts.
"But the authority is investing nearly $500 million to install two "scrubbers" designed to decrease pollution. A third, newer boiler has a built-in scrubber. The equipment should be in place by early 2011 and will decrease the plant's sulfur dioxide emissions by about 90 percent, said authority spokeswoman Clara Tuma."

That "but" makes it sound like there's some connection between the two paragraphs, besides the fact that reduced sulfur emissions are likely to solve the problem *if* there is one (however, first we have to assume there is one). It's likely that the addition of the new boiler triggered installation of the scrubbers on the older parts of the plant.

Really, abductive reasoning isn't logic. "Sulfur dioxide poisoning is consistent with the data we present, so therefore sulfur dioxide must be the culprit."

[hayu_lol]

5. Under the former Pretzeldent, as Gov. of Texas...

laws were written with the cooperation of the corporations(all kinds)that the corporations would 'police' themselves as to pollution. Obviously, that was a fail. Molly Ivins, in her book 'Shrub',covers this subject well.