Incinerator poses serious health risk

Jay Hancock's recent column ("This waste-to-energy plant could be model for Md.," Sept. 11) leaves a false impression that the Energy Answers (EA) incinerator project planned for Baltimore is a worthy, benign renewable energy project.

Children in the Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, and Hawkins Point communities will be endangered by this project. The negative health impacts associated with incinerator pollution include asthma, bronchitis, developmental delays and nerve damage. A 2008 study revealed that children living within three miles of incinerator sites were twice as likely to be diagnosed with childhood cancer. EA's permit also authorizes it to emit 240 pounds of mercury each year, as much as is currently emitted by much larger coal-fired plants in the state. Mercury impairs neurological development in fetuses, infants, and children.

These are very real risks for Baltimore children, especially given the location of the plant — less than a mile from Curtis Bay Elementary School and Benjamin Franklin Middle School. It's disturbing that the state waived a law prohibiting the construction of an incinerator within one mile of a school in order to see this small 160-megawatt plant built, especially given its impacts on the health of very young children that will be exposed to its emissions every day.

The costs of these health impacts are not reflected in the price per megawatt-hour for the electricity that EA will sell to local municipalities and schools. These are costs borne on the public by taking the wrong path to Maryland's energy future. Instead, we should take a path to an authentic clean energy future by investing in energy efficiency and truly renewable energy sources like offshore wind power.

Bob Daniels, Orchard Beach