Clean-air settlement delights Northeast

[jpak]

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=139674&ac=PHnws

Officials and environmentalists in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont are applauding a landmark settlement that will dramatically reduce the pollution that causes acid rain and fouls the air over the region.

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The agreement with American Electric Power Co., struck just as the company was to defend itself in court, ends an eight-year battle over reducing smokestack pollution that has drifted across Northeast and mid-Atlantic states and damaged mountain ranges, bays and national landmarks.

The settlement requires AEP, based in Columbus, Ohio, to reduce chemical emissions that cause acid rain by at least 69 percent in the next decade. AEP must also pay a $15 million fine and $60 million in cleanup and mitigation costs to help heal polluted land in the Shenandoah National Park and waterways including Chesapeake Bay.

Government officials praised the deal as the largest environmental settlement in the nation's history. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, by contrast, yielded $1 billion in restoration and restitution costs, although Exxon Mobil Corp. estimates it has so far spent $3.5 billion and faces an additional $2.5 billion in criminal penalties.

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[codjh9]

1. GOOD!!!! This is hugely important. The Northeast was called the 'tailpipe of

the nation' in an article I read, because a lot of pollution from the midwest and upper Atlantic is blown through there becuase of wind patterns. Of course, pollution isn't good anywhere. Perhaps this will also improve air quality in the Great Smoky Mts. National Park - a lot of the 'bad air' there is from the upper midwest as well.

[Kolesar]

2. Electricity prices are going to skyrocket in Ohio when all regulation ends on 1/1/2009

First Energy is having to install scrubbers at their big plants, also

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. As someone living in the Northeast, I must say

:woohoo: