Cleaning the Air at the Expense of Waterways

Quarter 1

Article 2

Cleaning the Air at the Expense of Waterways 

New York Times

Miller Chapter

The area covered is national. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/us/13water.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1258024026-cZtQM5F//LzsMmawvQz6TA

A growing number of coal-burning power plants around the nation have moved to reduce their air emissions, many of them are creating another problem: water pollution. People complained and said that the coal-burning power plants caused 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 andchemicals 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. 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.

My opinion on this article is that the company was looking for an easy solution and found one. However, the company should be aware of the environmental damage that they are responsible for. The company needs to stop polluting the drinking water. The government should get involved and stop this as soon as possible.

Vocabulary: 

Clean Water Act- The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. The act established the goals of eliminating releases to water of high amounts of toxic substances, eliminating additional water pollution by 1985. The act has also ensured that surface waters would meet standards necessary for human sports and recreation by 1983.