Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways

Father Rodney Torbic, the priest at the St. George Serbian Orthodox Church, lives across the road from Hatfield’s Ferry and sees people suffering. Photo: Damon Winter/The New York Times [published in 2009]

MASONTOWN, Pa. — For years, residents here complained about the yellow smoke pouring from the tall chimneys of the nearby coal-fired power plant, which left a film on their cars and pebbles of coal waste in their yards. Five states — including New York and New Jersey — sued the plant’s owner, Allegheny Energy, claiming the air pollution was causing respiratory diseases and acid rain.

So three years ago, when Allegheny Energy decided to install scrubbers to clean the plant’s air emissions, environmentalists were overjoyed. The technology would spray water and chemicals through the plant’s chimneys, trapping more than 150,000 tons of pollutants each year before they escaped into the sky.

But the cleaner air has come at a cost. Each day since the equipment was switched on in June, the company has dumped tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh, 40 miles to the north.

“It’s like they decided to spare us having to […]

Full article: Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways

More about the water in Pennsylvania:

Oil and gas wastewater radioactivity persists in Pennsylvania stream sediments

Pennsylvania watershed contaminated with radioactive material and endocrine-disrupting chemicals

Pennsylvania DEP staffers warned superiors of dangers to private water wells from pipeline construction