Study: Illnesses Linked to Power Plants

[CShine]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A consultant used by the Environmental Protection Agency said health problems linked to power plant pollution shortens nearly 24,000 lives a year, including 2,800 from lung cancer. The report by Cambridge, Mass.-based Abt Associates Inc., commissioned by environmental advocacy groups, found that 22,000 of those deaths are preventable with currently available technology. The report was released Wednesday. It also found that people dying prematurely from problems associated with exposure to fine particle pollution, or soot, lost an average of 14 years. Power plant pollution also is responsible for 38,200 nonfatal heart attacks each year, according to the study commissioned by groups including the National Environmental Trust, U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Clean Air Task Force. The groups said the study shows that enforcing current law would result in 4,000 fewer preventable deaths a year.

The study relied on computer modeling to compare EPA data on power plant emission levels and dispersal patterns with results of epidemiological studies by Harvard University in 1993 and the American Cancer Society in 1995, said Angela Ledford, who directs the groups' campaign on air pollution.

The data came from 2002 for soot - microscopic particles linked to asthma, heart disease and other health problems - along with acid rain-causing sulfur dioxide and smog-forming nitrogen oxides, Ledford said.

Scott Segal, who represents several major utilities, said the groups are obscuring that soot pollution from power plants dropped 75 percent from 1970 to 1999, based on EPA and Energy Department figures, even as energy consumption increased 41 percent.

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