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Health & Fitness

Health study confirms Redondo power plant biggest source of particulate pollution

The City of Hermosa Beach has published its draft Health Impact Assessment on the proposed oil drilling project under consideration.  This report confirms what Building a Better Redondo, NoPowerPlant.com, and Councilman Bill Brand have stated from the start.  Even though it is running at an average of less than 5% of capacity, the AES power plant in Redondo is the number one source of particulate pollution in our area.

"PM10 emissions in the local Hermosa Beach area range from 0 to 225 tons per year, with the majority of these emissions coming from the AES Redondo Beach power plant facility. "

The Redondo Beach power plant is also cited as a major source for nitrogen oxide emissions, second only to the combination of cars, trucks, boats and recreational vehicle traffic in the area.

"Current nitrogen oxide emissions in the Site vicinity are estimated to range from 0 to 529 tons per year. The only industrial source of nitrogen oxide emissions within one mile radius is the AES Redondo Beach power plant facility, which contributes 44% of the total nitrogen oxide emissions. Cars, trucks, boats and other recreational vehicles account for 51% of nitrogen oxides in the local Hermosa Beach area."

The HIA then goes on to assess the impact of the oil operations on the health of Hermosa residents.  In the case of particulate pollution, the project will only add 0.6 tons per year. The report concludes that this increase would cause an additional 0 to 1.6 deaths per year and it does not consider Redondo residents near the site.    In the case of Nitrogen Oxides, the project will add 5.8 tons per year.  The report predicts a 14% increase in asthma symptoms resulting in 6 additional asthma cases per year in children under the age of 18. 

Because it would produce much more air pollution than the oil operation, the impacts of a new power plant in Redondo would be worse.  If the new plant runs at just 25% of capacity it would produce an additional 13.8 tons per year more particulate pollution than the current power plant.  At its application limit, the plant would produce 46.4 tons more particulate pollution than the current plant.  Scaling the health impact from the Hermosa study to this output would mean 0-36.8 more deaths per year at the low run rate and 0-123.7 more deaths per year at the application limit.  Similarly, the increased NOX production of the new plant running at 25% would increase the incidence of asthma by 27.6 cases per year and at application limit the plant would increase asthma incidence by 110 cases per year.

There may be some scaling issues with this calculation as Hermosa is higher density population than Redondo Beach, but the end result is clear.  There is a measurable impact on the lives and health of residents and their children associated with building a new power plant in such a densely populated area.  Given the plant is unneeded for our grid reliabiity, there is no need to put the lives and health of Redondo residents and our children at increased risk.

One question this brings up is why Hermosa Beach has required a Health Impacts Assessment for their oil project, while our City has not for a much more impactful project.  Why not?  Is our health not important?  Beach Cities Health District even advocated such a study.   It seems the City of Hermosa puts more priority on the health of its residents than the City of Redondo.  While I applaud our Council for opposing the new power plant, I believe the Council's politics got in the way of their duty to protect resident health.









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