Protesters target Dirty Somerset/Brayton Point power plant

At the bottom are links to previously posted articles and excerpts that tell the story of DIRTY COAL and AIR POLLUTION that elevates childhood asthma rates.

 Coal Ash storage in unlined ponds jeopardizes drinking water.

Time to end DIRTY COAL and protect children. 

Protesters target Somerset power plant

Hundreds show, 44 are arrested

By Andrew Doerfler

| Globe Correspondent July 28, 2013

Dave Souza/The Herald News of Fall River via Associated Press

Many protesters wore red to show that they were willing to be arrested, and crossed a line marked with police tape.

Hundreds of protesters Sunday called upon Governor Deval Patrick to close an electricity-generating power plant in Somerset, and about 44 of them were arrested for trespassing on the plant’s grounds, according to Somerset Police Chief Joseph C. Ferreira.

Ferreira estimated about 350 protesters had shown up for a demonstration arranged by climate change organization 350 Massachusetts outside the Brayton Point Power Station.

The plant’s owner, Dominion, described Brayton Point on its website as one of the largest electricity generating plants in New England, using a combination of low-sulfur coal, natural gas, or oil and diesel fuel to generate 1,528 megawatts of electricity.

Many protesters wore red shirts Sunday to indicate they were willing to be arrested. Law enforcement marked a line with police tape and traffic cones, and arrests were made when they crossed the line, according to Ferreira.

“They set themselves apart from the rest of the people,” Ferreira said. “They knew they were trespassing and they were peacefully arrested.”

Before the arrests, protesters marched from a nearby park to the plant, according to Adam Greenberg, a member of 350 Massachusetts and a spokesman at Sunday’s event.

Greenberg said protesters erected mock wind turbines and held out solar panels to stress alternatives to coal and fossil fuels processed at Brayton Point.

Greenberg said the demonstrators contend that Brayton Point should be closed because they believe it poses a health risk to locals and impacts the climate. He said one goal was to encourage Massachusetts to take a leading role in exploring other energy options.

Ferreira said around 100 members of law enforcement were on the scene from the Somerset Police Department, Massachusetts State Police, the Massachusetts Environmental Police, the Southeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, and the Bristol County sheriff’s office.

Those arrested were taken to a makeshift jail set up by the sheriff’s office at a National Guard armory in Fall River, Ferreira said. Police said one of those arrested was taken to Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River to be treated for dehydration.

Representatives of the protesters and the police had met in the weeks leading up to the rally, and police had proposed alternatives to the voluntary arrests. Greenberg said that 350 Massachusetts believed that the arrests would make a bigger statement. “People have been working to shut this plant down for decades,’’ he said. “All the other avenues have been attempted multiple times.’’

In March, Dominion announced that it would sell the station to Energy Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in New Jersey and California, according to a release on Dominion’s website.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/07/28/dozens-demand-that-govenor-deval-patrick-close-brayton-point-power-plant-somerset/D2pTwilXJqY1GH05DIr9SM/story.html

Ending Brayton Point's Pollution

Predominantly coal-fired Brayton Point Station in Somerset, Massachusetts, is the state’s largest single source of carbon emissions (producing over 6 million tons in 2010). Another harmful pollutant emitted by Brayton Point is particulate matter, which is measured daily by monitors that continuously check the opacity of the soot coming out of the plant’s smokestack. Brayton has been violating their limits for emitting that soot, and failing to monitor their emissions of several other harmful pollutants.

Activists call on gov to close Somerset's Brayton Point plant, transition state away from coal

In 2010, the power station was deemed by the EPA as the largest polluter in New England and responsible for nearly half of all mercury emissions in the state.
Westport resident David Dionne, of the Coalition for Clean Air, told about 25 supporters the state has one of the highest rates of childhood asthma in the country.

 

Three reasons Cape Cod (and Middleboro) air sucks

 

“The least polluting, cheapest energy is the energy we never have to produce in the first place”

 

Three reasons Cape Cod air sucks

MetroWest News offers a list of the state's worse polluters, and three of the worse are downwind from Cape Cod.

SEMASS Resource Recovery Facility, Wareham, a 95-acre facility which burns trash collected by about 60 cities and towns in southeastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod to generate power.
Dominion’s Brayton Point plant in Somerset (just over the Braga Bridge in Fall River) pumps out 5.8 million metric tons of the gas a year.

Cape Cod Canal Power Plant Unit #1 is representative of the most efficient fossil fueled plants of the 1970 era. It's an oil fueled super-critical steam unit optimally designed to best operate between half load and full load.

The largest single producer of greenhouse gases in New England is the Brayton Point power station in Somerset, which is largely fueled by coal.

Check out the EPA’s greenhouse gas inventory at ghgdata.epa.gov.

Environmental Terrorism [Unsure why Brayton Point and Somerset are listed separately.]

Doesn't Brayton Point, operated by Dominion Energy NUGs burn DIRTY COAL?

 

Brayton Point (zip 02725) has 95,000 TONS OF COAL ASH.

 

If I got my zeroes right, that's

190,000,000 POUNDS

Doesn't Somerset Station operated by NRG Energy burn DIRTY COAL?

 

Somerset Station (zip 02726) has 30,050 TONS OF COAL ASH.

If I got my zeroes right, that's

60,100,000 POUNDS