Higher Birth Weight, Lower Risk Of Premature Births After Coal Power Plant Shut Down

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/12/22/higher-birth-weight-lower-risk-premature-births-coal-power-plant-shut/

December 22nd, 2017 by Steve Hanley

For decades, the Portland Generating Station, located in Pennsylvania close to the New Jersey border, spewed an average of 2,600 tons of sulfur dioxide each month into the atmosphere. Pennsylvania industry and residents got the benefit of Portland’s electricity. New Jersey residents got to choke on the pollution as it drifted eastward on the prevailing breeze. In 2009, it emitted 30,465 tons of sulfur dioxide — more than double the amount from all electricity generating facilities in New Jersey combined, according to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

study published in April 2017 by Muzhe Yang, associate professor of economics and Shin-Yi Chou, chair of the Lehigh University department of economics, found the Portland facility had a measurable effect on pregnant women living up to 30 miles downwind. Based on data compiled between 1990 and 2006, the researchers determined that women within the plume of pollution from the Portland facility had a 6.5% greater risk of low birth weight and a 17.12% greater risk of very low birth weight.

The Portland Generating Plant played a critical role in the Clean Power Plan devised by the Obama administration. As a result of litigation brought by the EPA, a court found it was the sole source of pollution in nearby New Jersey and ordered it closed. In June, 2014, the plant was shuttered. By December 2015, sulfur dioxide emissions in nearby New Jersey had dropped by over 99%.

Yang and Chou repeated their study after the shutdown. Their findings, published this week online in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management and reported by Lehigh University, show that shutting down the plant reduced the likelihood of a low birth weight baby by 0.89 percentage points or about 15% and reduced the likelihood of a preterm birth by 2.83 percentage points or about 28%. The findings are based on medical data from New Jersey zip codes within 60 miles of the plant.

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