Slightly Cleaner Coal, Much Dirtier Water

A devastatingly great story in today’s NYT about Allegheny Energy installing scrubbers at a coal plant to reduce carbon emissions. The problem, however, is that the scrubbing is done by spraying water and chemicals through the plant’s chimneys; the pollution-laden water is dumped into the Monongahela River, which supplies drinking water to 350,000 people. “It’s like they decided to spare us having to breathe in these poisons, but now we have to drink them instead,” said Philip Coleman, who lives about 15 miles from the plant and has asked a state judge to toughen the facility’s pollution regulations. “We can’t escape.”

Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post. View all posts by Peter Maass