Contact your elected officials
One of the most effective things you can do to help clean up our air is contact your elected officials and let them know that air pollution is bad for our health, especially for those most vulnerable in our community – children, the elderly and the sick.
The coal and utility industries are strong and our elected officials are hearing from them – daily. If enough citizens make a call, write an email and get their friends and family to do so, they will listen.
Here are some suggestions on points to include:
- The American Lung Association ranked Birmingham #5 in the nation for air pollution. Our air is worse than Detroit, Atlanta and any city in the southeast. Poor air quality is bad for our health and is not a desirable trait to attract people and businesses to our region.
- Current state regulations are not sufficient to clean up our air.
- Breathing ozone and particle pollution takes a hard toll on those who suffer from asthma. In our community, approximately 26,000 kids are suffering from asthma, and 78,500 adults have the disease.
- The improvements being made at the three coal-fired power plants surrounding our community are not enough to clean up our air. The power plants should be using modern day pollution controls all other industries are required to do so.
- The James Miller plant emitted more Mercury than any other plant in the nation in 2007 which is unacceptable. Mercury is a highly toxic substance, there are currently no limits on amounts of Mercury that can be emitted into the air.
- The pollutants taken out of the emissions must not be transferred to the water.
