Posted on 09/07/2001 6:36:44 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
By Diane Lindquist
STAFF WRITER
September 7, 2001
In a sign of growing concern about new power plants in Baja California, a group of border-area residents is calling on the United States, Mexico and California to take immediate steps to protect the region from additional air pollution.
The Imperial and Mexicali Clean Air Stakeholders is sending nine recommendations this week to 40 elected and appointed officials in Mexico and the United States. The recommendations would establish uniform environmental regulations and practices on both sides of the California-Baja California border.
Mexican air quality standards are similar to those in California. But in Mexico, energy authorities don't consider a region's air quality when they grant power plant permits. And they allow the plants to discharge much higher emissions than would be tolerated north of the border.
"These plants are being permitted in Mexico and being built so rapidly that there's an urgency. Something needs to be done now," said Jan Cortez, director of the American Lung Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties. "There is no reason for Mexican standards to allow emissions that are 10 times higher."
The group grew out of a Lung Association project to identify major air quality issues in Imperial County and its cross-border neighbor, Mexicali. It is made up of about 55 individuals and representatives of organizations and governmental agencies, including the Sierra Club, the California Office of Binational Border Health and the Imperial County Board of Supervisors.
Another cross-border citizens' organization, the Border Power Plant Working Group, sent a letter to U.S. and Mexican officials two weeks ago asking them to address the health consequences of the power plant boom.
Both groups are especially concerned about construction gearing up near Mexicali on two big plants that will sell electricity to both California and Baja California.
The stakeholders group's most important recommendation, Cortez said, is that "offsets" be required to balance power plants' added emissions with equal reductions elsewhere in the region.
"We're very concerned with the current pollution levels in Imperial County and Mexicali," she said. "The recommendation says we do not want those power plants to add any more pollution to the region."
Other recommendations ask that:
Mexico adopt new regulations specifically for the border area, requiring electric utility facilities to use the best available technology to cut discharges of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter.
California create a law requiring all power plants exporting electricity into the state to meet California air quality emission standards.
Continuous emission monitors be installed in all new power plants and that the data be released to U.S. and Mexican authorities, as well as the general public.
Copies of the recommendations also were sent to the companies constructing the Mexicali projects, InterGen Corp. and Sempra Energy International.
"The technology exists for the plants to be fitted with the proper controls so the emissions can be much lower," Cortez said. "Since U.S. companies are building the same kind of plants in Mexico they build in the United States, they can install that technology as easily in Mexico as they do in the United States."
Stop eating beans or use Beano ...
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