Groups Seek to Close Coal Burning Power Plant in Bridgeport

Earlier this year, a report titled "Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People," ranked a dozen power plants across the nation as top environmental justice offenders.

The group report, co-authored by Adrian Wilson, NAACP, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO), and the Indigenous Environmental Network used an algorithm combining levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions together with demographic factors to calculate the score for the 431 coal-fired power plants in the United States.

On the list was the Bridgeport Harbor Station (owned by New Jersey based Public Service Enterprise Group or PSEG), which supplies power to our area.

In February, Greenpeace activists scaled the Bridgeport Harbor coal plant and draped a 20-by-40-foot banner with the message: "Shut it Down: Quit Coal."

The event marked the first major action of the activist group’s Quit Coal campaign, which seeks to highlight the devastating consequences of continuing to rely on the fossil fuel in the United States. However, as is customary at Greenpeace protests, cops soon arrived and cut down the banner, with at least five activists reportedly busted.

According to a spokesperson from Greenpeace, the plant is antiquated and a “polluting coal plant that is no longer necessary to provide power to the Connecticut grid, and should be shut down to mitigate the worst effects of global Climate Change.”

Recently, CREDO (a long distance and mobile phone company that donates profits to non-profit and activist groups) spearheaded a petition to shut down the plant, when its permit expires in 2012. The petition has thus far reached 70 percent of its goal. When it reaches 100 percent it will be sent on to Governor Dannel Malloy and to Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection.

Malloy did not respond to our request for comment.

Communications coach Eileen Winnick (The Winnick Group) joined the push to shut down the plant by circulating the petition from her Westport home computer.

“This dirty coal plant emits more than three million tons of carbon dioxide, 
2,800 tons of sulfur dioxide and 2,000 tons of nitrogen oxide each year,” said Winnick, also an actress who has appeared in many television commercials and on stage over the years. “Exposure to these pollutants exacerbates heart disease, asthma, bronchitis 
and other serious health problems, and it can even lead to premature 
death.”

In fact, a number of people living nearby the plant have reported high rates of respiratory illnesses in addition to coal ash on their property. The plant is wedged between Bridgeport’s downtown and South End neighborhoods, which are among the city’s poorest. Six schools are located within a mile of the plant.

In April, the NAACP Climate Justice Initiative sent representatives armed with cameras to the plant to get a first hand look.

“We weren’t able to begin our filming in front of the plant because we were run off by security who stated that filming in front of the plant was a felony offense by order of the department of Homeland Security,” said a representative for the Initiative. 

Yet he was still able to shoot footage of the plant from afar, including what was described as the largest mountain of coal seen in all his visits to coal plants. 

“And it is completely uncovered, which is why even now I have coal dust on my car,” the rep added.

The plant supplying power and pollution to Fairfield County is also responsible for environmental devastation in Indonesia. The nearly one million tons of coal burned annually at the Bridgeport plant comes from the rainforests of Indonesia’s East Kalimantan region.

The Coal Combustion Waste Initiative, Environmental Integrity Project has been conducting studies for more than two decades to secure federal standards for regulation of toxic Coal Combustion Waste. In 1999, there were six CCW damage sites recognized by the US EPA. As of 2010, The EPA has identified 70 CCW damage sites throughout the country.

A recent report reveals another 31 damage sites in 14 states caused by inadequate CCW disposal practices and more than 1,300 such sites exist throughout the nation. Over 600 are active. Very few states monitor the landfill sites to notify nearby residents if their drinking water may be in danger of contamination.

Data from the EIP/Earth Justice report reveal arsenic and other toxic metal levels in contaminated water up to 145 times federally permissible levels at some coal-ash disposal sites. The report identifies 31 coal-ash waste sites where groundwater, wetlands, creeks, or rivers have been polluted with wastes that contain some of the earth’s most deadly pollutants, including arsenic, cadmium, lead, selenium, and other toxic metals that can cause cancer and neurological harm in humans or fish.

For the sake of clean air and public health in Connecticut — as well as for the environment and people of Indonesia’s East Kalimantan region — many feel that it is time for the Bridgeport Harbor coal plant to be shut down.

“This is in our back yard and adding to the toxic air we breathe,” said Winnick. “I hope that people will sign a petition to stop it.”

But she is optimistic that the newly minted Democratic governor will set the state on a path to clean, renewable energy.

“The plant’s permit to operate is expiring early next year, and now momentum is finally building to shut this plant down once and for all,” Winnick concluded. “Let's make sure Governor Malloy knows that his constituents are sick and
 tired of pollution from the dirty Bridgeport coal plant and that he should shut it down.”