Asthma attacks decreased significantly among residents near coal-fired power plants after the plants shut down or upgraded their emission controls, according to a new study.
Coal-fired power plants emit air pollution that includes mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. Living near coal-fired power plants is linked to higher rates of respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and cancer, and premature death.
According to a study published this week in the journal Nature Energy, when those plants shut down or upgrade their emissions controls, rescue inhaler use, emergency room visits and hospitalizations for asthma all decrease among nearby residents. The study is the first to show decreased inhaler use following a reduction in pollution from coal plants, and builds on previous evidence that living near these facilities leads to increased asthma exacerbations.
The study was conducted between 2012 and 2017 in Kentucky, which ranks among the top U.S. states for air pollution from power generation. Researchers focused on Jefferson County, where one coal-fired power plant shut down and three others upgraded emission controls around the same time, and found that inhaler use, ER visits, and hospitalizations all fell—in some zip codes by up to 55 percent—following the reduction in emissions.
"We saw about three fewer emergency department visits and hospitalizations per quarter per zip code," Joan Casey, assistant professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and lead author on the study, told EHN. "That translates into about 400 prevented asthma-related hospital visits per year across the county."
While many studies have looked at health impacts associated with living near coal-fired power plants, this is the first to use digital sensors to track rescue inhaler use among the same group of people before and after a drastic reduction in emissions. They did this by attaching sensors to rescue inhalers distributed among Louisville residents with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, commonly referred to as COPD, starting in 2012. The sensors tracked the date, time, and location of each inhaler puff.
The researchers had data for 207 participants before and after the installation of "scrubbers," or emission reduction equipment, at the three coal-fired power plants in 2016. Comparing people to themselves before and after the pollution reduction allowed them to control for factors like socioeconomics, underlying conditions, indoor air quality, age, etc., which is harder to do with hospital data, Casey said.
In the months following scrubber installation, Casey and her colleagues saw an average reduction of inhaler use of about 17 percent, with continued declining use after that.
"A lot of studies have shown that populations living near coal-fired power plants have higher rates of respiratory hospitalizations," Casey said, "but it's been difficult to attribute those directly to coal-fired power plants because poor communities of color tend to be located closer to these facilities in the U.S., and they have a higher burden of diseases like asthma and COPD."
Because of the "natural experiment" created by the drastic change in emissions and the addition of the inhaler data, Casey believes their research more definitively links asthma attacks and resulting hospital visits to unchecked emissions from coal-fired power plants.
"All of that information together convinced us that what we were seeing was probably real," she said.
Rolling back regulations
Coal-fired power plants have been decommissioned at increasing rates each year as the cost of other power sources, like natural gas and renewables, become cheaper.
As of December 2018 (the most current data available), there were 336 predominantly coal-fired power plants still in operation in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
It's likely that similar improvements in asthma outcomes occurred in communities across the U.S. during the same time period of the study, thanks to a sweeping change in pollution regulations.
In 2014, coal-fired power plants accounted for 63 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions in the nation. The 2012 federal Mercury and Air Toxics (MATS) rule required all coal-fired plants to install scrubbers that reduce toxics like mercury and sulfur dioxide in emissions by 2015 (or 2016 if they got a special extension). During 2015, plants that had recently installed this equipment reduced their sulfur dioxide emissions by 49 percent.
"I think our findings are exciting," Casey said, "because we're seeing that the cost to install these scrubbers can be made back quickly just through prevented healthcare visits. We're only looking at asthma here, but we know there are other related health outcomes as well, so the benefits are likely far greater than what we're estimating."
But despite these benefits—and the fact that these pollution controls have already been successfully installed at coal-fired power plants across the country—the current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administration intends to roll back the MATS rule, undoing the regulations that have kept people in places like Jefferson County, Kentucky, healthier.
The administration also recently announced plans to suspend enforcement of environmental regulations during the coronavirus pandemic.
"It's disappointing to see the EPA suspend enforcement of environmental laws during the COVID-19 pandemic," Casey said, "especially as we're starting to see stark disparities in COVID deaths among the same groups—communities of color and the poor—that face the greatest respiratory harm from pollution, including coal-fired power plants. We should be tightening environmental regulations, not abandoning them during this time."
Banner photo: The Mill Creek Generation Station coal plant in Louisville, Kentucky. (Credit: William Alden/flickr)
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro are among Harris' potential VP choices.
Beshear and Cooper have a history of winning elections in conservative states, which could broaden Harris' appeal.
Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who has supported water regulation policies, also emerges as a potential pick.
Key quote:
"I love serving the people of Kentucky. The only way I would consider something other than this current job is if I believed I could further help my people and to help this country."
— Andy Beshear, Governor of Kentucky
Why this matters:
Choosing a moderate vice presidential candidate may help Harris appeal to a broader electorate. This strategy could be pivotal in securing critical electoral votes in the upcoming election.
CAMERON PARISH, La. — Late into the night, John Allaire watches the facility next to his home shoot 300-foot flares from stacks.
He lives within eyesight of southwest Louisiana’s salty shores, where, for decades, he’s witnessed nearly 200 feet of land between it and his property line disappear into the sea. Two-thirds of the land was rebuilt to aid the oil and gas industry’s LNG expansion. LNG — shorthand for liquified natural gas – is natural gas that's cooled to liquid form for easier storage or transport; it equates to 1/600th the volume of natural gas in a gaseous state. It’s used to generate electricity, or fuel stove tops and home heaters, and in industrial processes like manufacturing fertilizer.
In the U.S., at least 30 new LNG terminal facilities have been constructed or proposed since 2016, according to the
Oil and Gas Watch project. Louisiana and Texas’ Gulf Coast, where five facilities are already operating, will host roughly two-thirds of the new LNG terminals – meaning at least 22 Gulf Coast LNG facilities are currently under construction, were recently approved to break ground or are under further regulatory review.
Although the U.S. didn’t ship LNG until 2016, when a freight tanker left, a few miles from where Cameron Parish’s LNG plants are today, last year the country became the global leader in LNG production and export volume, leapfrogging exporters like Qatar and Australia. The
EIA’s most recent annual outlook estimated that between the current year and 2050, U.S. LNG exports will increase by 152%.
Allaire, 68, watches how saltwater collects where rainwater once fed the area’s diminishing coastal wetlands. “We still come down here with the kids and set out the fishing rods. It's not as nice as it used to be,” he told
Environmental Health News (EHN).
That intimacy with nature drew Allaire to the area when he purchased 311 acres in 1998. An environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran, he helped lead environmental assessments and manage clean-ups, and although retired, he still works part-time as an environmental consultant with major petroleum companies. With a lifetime of oil and gas industry expertise, he’s watched the industry's footprint spread across Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile shores and beyond. Now that the footprints are at the edge of his backyard, Allaire is among a cohort of organizers, residents and fisher-folk in the region mobilizing to stop LNG facility construction. For him, the industry’s expansion usurps the right-or-wrong ethics he carried across his consulting career. For anglers, oil and gas infrastructure has destroyed fishing grounds and prevented smaller vessels from accessing the seafood-rich waters of the Calcasieu River.
From the view of Allaire’s white pickup truck as he drives across his property to the ocean’s shore, he points to where a new LNG facility will replace marshlands. Commonwealth LNG intends to clear the land of trees and then backfill the remaining low-lying field.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.”
Community bands together
John Allaire, left, purchased 311 acres in Cameron Parish in 1998, and has watched the oil and gas industry's footprint spread to his property.
Credit: John Allaire
During an Earth Day rally in April, community members gathered in the urban center of Lake Charles to demand local oil and gas industries help deliver a safer, healthier future for all. In between live acts by artists performing south Louisiana’s quintessential zydeco musical style, speakers like James Hiatt, a Calcasieu Parish native with ties to Cameron Parish and a Healthy Gulf organizer, and RISE St. James organizer Sharon Lavigne, who’s fighting against LNG development in rural Plaquemines Parish near the city of New Orleans, asked the nearly 100 in attendance to imagine a day in which the skyline isn’t dotted by oil and gas infrastructure.
Not long ago, it was hard to imagine an Earth Day rally in southwest Louisiana at all. For decades, the area has been decorated with fossil fuel infrastructure. Sunsets on some days are highlighted by the chemicals in the air; at night, thousands of facilities’ lights dot the dark sky.
“It takes a lot of balls for people to start speaking up,” Shreyas Vasudevan, a campaign researcher with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, told EHN in the days after the rally. In a region with its history and economy intertwined with oil and gas production, “you can get a lot of social criticism – or ostracization, as well – even threats to your life.”
Many are involved in local, regional and national advocacy groups, including the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and the National Audubon Society.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.” - John Allaire, environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran
But environmental organizers are fighting a multi-billion-dollar industry with federal and state winds at its back. And LNG’s federal support is coupled with existing state initiatives.
Under outgoing Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — a term-limited Democrat — the state pledged a goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Natural gas, which the LNG industry markets as a cleaner-burning alternative, is cited as one of the state’s solutions. Louisiana is the only state that produces a majority of its carbon emissions through fossil fuels refining industries, like LNG, rather than energy production or transportation. Governor Edwards’ office did not return EHN’s request for comment.
This accommodating attitude towards oil and gas industries has resulted in a workforce that’s trained to work in LNG refining facilities across much of the rural Gulf region, said Steven Miles, a lawyer at Baker Botts LLP and a fellow at the Baker Institute’s Center on Energy Studies. Simultaneously, anti-industrialization pushback is lacking. It’s good news for industries like LNG.
“The bad news,” Miles added. “[LNG facilities] are all being jammed in the same areas.”
One rallying cry for opponents is local health. The Environmental Integrity Project found that LNG export terminals emit chemicals like carbon monoxide –potentially deadly– and sulfur dioxide, of which the American Lung Association says long-term exposure can lead to heart disease, cancer, and damage to internal or female reproductive organs.
An analysis of emissions monitoring reports by the advocacy group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade found that Venture Global’s existing Calcasieu Pass facility had more than 2,000 permit violations.That includes exceeding the permit’s authorized air emissions limit to release nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds 286 out of its first 343 days of operation.
The Marvel Crane, the first liquid natural gas carrier to transport natural gas from the Southwest Louisiana LNG facility, transits a channel in Hackberry, Louisiana, May 28, 2019.
“This is just one facility,” at a time when three more facilities have been proposed in the region and state, Vasudevan said. Venture Global’s operational LNG facility — also known as Calcasieu Pass — “is much smaller than the other facility they’ve proposed.”
In an area that experienced 18 feet of storm surge during Hurricane Laura in 2020 — and just weeks later, struck by Hurricane Delta — Venture Global is planning to build a second export terminal Known as “CP2,” it’s the largest of the roughly two dozen proposed Gulf LNG export terminals, and a key focal point for the region’s local organizing effort.
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” Hiatt told EHN of locals’ nostalgia for a community before storms like Rita in 2005 brought up to 15 feet of storm surge, only for Laura to repeat the damage in 2020. Throughout that time, the parish’s population dipped from roughly 10,000 to 5,000. “But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG. Folks in Cameron think that's going to bring back community, bring back the schools, bring back this time before we had all these storms — when Cameron was pretty prosperous.”
“Clearly,” for the oil and gas industry, “the idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports,” Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana, told EHN.
Helping fishers’ impacted by LNG is about “actual survival of this unique culture,” Cooke said.
In a measure of organizers’ success, she pointed to a recent permit hearing for Venture Global’s CP2 proposal. Regionally, it’s the only project that’s received an environmental permit, but not its export permit, which remains under federal review. At the meeting, some spoke on the company’s behalf. As an organizer, it was a moment of clarity, Cooke explained. Venture Global officials “had obviously done a lot of coaching and organizing and getting people together in Cameron to speak out on their behalf,” Cooke said. “So, in a way, that was bad. But in another way, it shows that we really had an impact.”
“It also shows that we have a lot to do,” Cooke added.
Environmental organizers like Alyssa Portaro describe a sense of fortitude among activists — she and her husband to the region’s nearby town of Vinton near the Texas-Louisiana border. Since the families’ relocation to their farm, Portaro has worked with Cameron Parish fisher-folk.
“I’ve not witnessed ‘community’ anywhere like there is in Louisiana,” Portaro told EHN. But a New Jersey native, she understands the toll environmental pollution has on low-income communities. “This environment, it’s so at risk — and it’s currently getting sacrificed to big industries.”
“People don’t know what we’d do without oil and gas. It comes at a big price,” she added.
Southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish is one of the state’s most rural localities. Marine economies were the area’s economic drivers until natural disasters and LNG facilities began pushing locals out, commercial fishers claim.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” James Hiatt , a Healthy Gulf organizer, told EHN. "But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG."
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
For the most part, Cameron Parish’s life and economy has historically taken place at sea. As new LNG facilities are operational or in planning locally, locals claim the community they once knew is nearly unrecognizable.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
A disappearing parish
The stakes are seemingly higher for a region like southwest Louisiana, which is the epicenter of climate change impacts.
In nearly a century, the state has lost roughly 2,000 square miles of land to coastal erosion. In part driving the state’s erosion crisis is the compounding impacts of Mississippi River infrastructure and oil and gas industry activity, such as dredging canals for shipping purposes, according to a March study published in the journal Nature Sustainability. Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority said Cameron Parish could lose more land than other coastal parishes over the next 50 years. A recent Climate Central report says the parish will be underwater within that time frame.
On top of erosion and sea level rise impacts, in August, 2023, marshland across southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish burned. The fires were among at least 600 across the Bayou State this year. Statewide, roughly 60,000 acres burned — a more than six-fold increase of the state’s average acres burned per year in the past decade alone.
But while the blaze avoided coastal Louisiana communities like Cameron Parish, the fires represented a warning coming from a growing chorus of locals across the region — one that’s echoes by the local commercial fishing population, who claimed to have experienced unusually low yields during the same time, according to a statement from a local environmental group. At the site of the Cameron Parish fires are locations for two proposed LNG expansion projects.
"The idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports.” - Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana
It was an unusual occurrence for an area that’s more often itself underwater this time of year due to a storm surge from powerful storms. For LNG expansion’s local opposition, it was a red flag.
As the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has noted prior, the confluence of climate change’s raising of sea levels and the construction of LNG export terminals — some are proposed at the size of nearly 700 football fields — are wiping away the marshland folks like Allaire watched wither. Among their fears is that the future facilities won’t be able to withstand the power of another storm like Laura and its storm surge, which wiped away entire communities in 2020.
Amidst these regional climate impacts, LNG infrastructure has shown potential to exacerbate the accumulation of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. For the most part, LNG is made up of methane — a greenhouse gas that’s more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Among the 22 current LNG facility proposals, the advocacy group Sierra Club described a combined climate pollution output that would roughly equal to that of about 440 coal plants.
The climate impacts prompt some of the LNG industry’s uncertainty going forward. It isn’t clear if Asian countries, key importers of U.S. LNG, will “embrace these energy transition issues,” said David Dismuke, an energy consultant and the former executive director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. Likewise, European nations remain skeptical of embracing LNG as a future staple fuel source.
“They really don't want to have to pull the trigger,” Dismukes added, referring to Europe’s hesitation to commit more resources to exporting LNG from the American market. “They don't want to go down that road.”
While there will be a tapering down of natural gas supply, Miles explained, “we’re going to need natural gas for a long time,” as larger battery storage for renewables is still unavailable.
“I'm not one of these futurists that can tell you where we're going to be, but I just don't see everything being extreme,” Dismukes said. “I don't see what we've already built getting stranded and going away, either.”
For now, LNG seems here to stay. From 2012 to 2022,U.S. natural gas demand — the sum of both domestic consumption and gross exports — rose by a whopping 43%, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA. Meanwhile, in oil and gas hotbeds like Louisiana and Texas, natural gas demand grew by 116%.
Throughout 25 years, Allaire has witnessed southwest Louisiana’s land slowly fade, in part driven by the same industrial spread regionally. Near where the front door of his travel trailer sits underneath the aluminum awning, he points to a chenier ridge located near the end of the property. It’s disappearing, he said.
“See the sand washing over, in here?” Allaire says, as he points towards the stretches of his property. “This pond used to go down for a half mile. This is all that's left of it on this side.”
Gov. Inslee highlighted the Climate Commitment Act's funding for projects like wireless bus charging stations, attributing over $1 million to the law.
The repeal effort, driven by Let’s Go Washington, claims the Act has raised gas prices significantly, hurting residents financially.
The law, which aims to cut emissions and has raised $2 billion for various programs, could lose momentum if repealed, affecting state and national climate initiatives.
Key quote:
“If this initiative passes here, it would definitely create a freeze and slow down states, maybe even the country’s action on addressing the climate crisis.”
— David Mendoza, director of policy and government relations, The Nature Conservancy in Washington
Why this matters:
The potential repeal of the Climate Commitment Act threatens to undermine crucial environmental progress and could impede broader efforts to combat climate change on both state and national levels.
Louisiana’s task force on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) has yet to submit its findings, five months past the deadline, leaving the public and officials in the dark about the potential impacts of the controversial technology.
Louisiana's CCS task force has missed its report deadline by five months with no explanation from its leaders.
CCS projects are progressing in Louisiana, a prime location due to its geological features, despite concerns about safety and environmental risks.
Opposition from local residents and environmental groups continues, particularly regarding the lack of proper scrutiny and potential health hazards.
Key quote:
“Even during the hearings of this task force, it became clear that the true aim here was dismissing or discrediting people’s concerns, not seeking to address them.”
— Jackson Voss, climate policy coordinator for the Alliance for Affordable Energy
Why this matters:
Despite a string of public meetings and a report due in February, the leaders behind this subterranean crusade aren't saying a word. Is this the future of environmental salvation or just another bureaucratic black hole? Read more: Climate activists pan carbon capture plans.
In a major stride against malaria, CDC researchers have created a rapid test to identify the Anopheles stephensi mosquito, a malaria carrier thriving due to climate change.
Anopheles stephensi, native to Asia, has established itself in Africa due to global warming, threatening 130 million people.
The CDC’s new test allows rapid identification of this mosquito, enabling quicker responses to potential malaria outbreaks.
Climate change facilitates the spread and persistence of this mosquito in new regions, increasing malaria risks.
Key quote:
"If we start seeing that mosquito in the United States, transmitting or getting a foothold here, then there’s more concern that we’re going to see more widespread malaria in, potentially, urban areas.”
— Judith O’Donnell, infectious disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania
Why this matters:
This breakthrough couldn't come at a better time, as the threat of malaria establishing itself in the U.S. looms larger. By nipping these mosquito migrations in the bud, we might just keep malaria at bay and protect vulnerable communities from a resurgence of this ancient scourge. Read more: The Holocene climate experience.
Arabica coffee, the most consumed coffee species, is highly vulnerable to climate change, risking significant drops in production by 2050.
Innovea, led by World Coffee Research, is developing climate-resilient coffee varieties through global collaboration, aiming to help farmers like those in Kenya.
The project combines traditional breeding with genetic technology to create high-yield, disease-resistant coffee plants.
Key quote:
“The idea is to identify the genes we’re looking for and move on with those plants instead of others.”
— Jane Cheserek, lead breeder at Kenya’s government-run Coffee Research Institute
Why this matters:
Innovea is driving a cutting-edge experiment aimed at creating the climate-proof coffee of the future. This isn't just about preserving your daily caffeine fix; it's about safeguarding the livelihoods of millions of farmers worldwide while protecting our environment. Read more: Alexa White on supporting small-scale farmers.
Devastating floods have repeatedly hit Ruidoso, New Mexico, following massive wildfires that destroyed 25,000 acres and nearly 1,000 homes, highlighting the escalating threat of climate change-induced disasters.
Ruidoso has faced eight major floods since June 21 after two wildfires scorched the area.
The fires have drastically reduced the soil's ability to absorb rainfall, leading to severe flash floods.
Residents are in "survival mode," repeatedly repairing flood damage and preparing for more.
Key quote:
“This town is sitting at the bottom of a bowl. And the sides of the bowl have burned.”
— Andrew Mangham, National Weather Service hydrologist
Why this matters:
The connection between the wildfires and floods is stark. Wildfires scorch the land, stripping it of vegetation that would normally absorb rainwater. Without this natural barrier, even moderate rainfall can lead to severe flooding. In Ruidoso, the torrential downpours have turned charred hillsides into fast-moving rivers of mud and debris, compounding the community’s misery.
Power shutoffs or wildfire evacuations can be deadly for disabled people, especially nondrivers who may not have a way to get to a cooling center or evacuation point.
