By: Karin Stein, Iowa Field Organizer, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: March 4, 2024
About: EPA Good Neighbor Rule Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0402
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Good morning:
My name is Karin Stein. I am the Iowa Organizer for Moms Clean Air Force and its EcoMadres program. We are a national organization of over a million and a half moms, dads, and other caretakers united against air pollution. We fight for climate safety and environmental justice.
I live in Iowa, and I strongly support EPA’s proposal to expand the Good Neighbor Plan and add Iowa to it, for the health of those living in and near Iowa.
People don’t usually associate Iowa with dirty air, and yet in 2022 asthma rates in Iowa were above the national average. The EPA itself stated in 2020 that Iowa sources could reduce state emissions of NOx by 61%, SO2 by 7%, and mercury emissions by 33%, under a “Clear Skies” proposal that never was moved through the Senate. The statistics, however, still stand and still need to be addressed. The Good Neighbor Plan provides this opportunity.
We know that reducing NOx and other emissions would clearly reduce asthma attacks, other chronic lung and heart diseases, and premature deaths. Including Iowa in the Good Neighbor Plan would help protect our youngest and most vulnerable, and people of color living near our coal plants, and within the areas where the wind carries the pollution from our coal plants, which are old and heavily polluting.
I’d like to use the example of two of those plants, Neal North and Neal South, operated by MidAmerican Energy in northwest Iowa, right along the Missouri River. The region where these coal plants are located includes three counties at the border of Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota. This region, known as Siouxland, has been a key location for energy production for decades. The Siouxland area is home to the Winnebago Tribe and the Omaha, many Latino residents, and other historically disadvantages communities. According to the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, “in the census tract less than two miles directly north of the George Neal North and South coal plants, residents rank in the 91st percentile nationally for low life expectancy.” The wind rose data for the prevailing winds around Sioux City shows that communities to the northwest and southeast of the Neal Plants bear the brunt of pollution emanating from their smokestacks – not only into Iowa, but also in Nebraska and South Dakota. What happens in Iowa doesn’t just stay in Iowa.
The Siouxland area is just one example. I could speak just as much about the coal plant in Louisa County on the opposite side of Iowa, along the Mississippi.
And it’s not just the coal plants that affect our ozone levels in Iowa. There are also the many ethanol plants around our state, and ethanol is being pumped at every gas station. Research shows that ethanol production is an important contributor to ozone formation and other pollutants. The compounding effect of these additional ozone pollution sources need to be taken into account as well.
Climate change also makes the Good Neighbor Plan more urgent. The so-called “ozone season,” the hot months, which are typically considered to range from May 1st through September 30th, may not be the norm for much longer. The climate is changing rapidly. Heat records are being broken more frequently, and this year we have had 70-degree weather in February in Iowa, and 80-dergree weather just yesterday, on March 4, 2024. These patterns are expected to persist and to worsen in the next decades, and we must do everything we can to protect our young and vulnerable communities now, and our descendants into the future, from coal plant and other industrial health and climate pollutants.
I’d like to say a few things in Spanish, my native language, to remind ourselves of who is often most affected and doesn’t even know it because of language barriers: es importante que los Latinos entiendan las fuentes de contaminación a su alrededor que están afectando su salud y recortando sus vidas, y es importante que la Agencia de Protección Ambiental ayude a protegerlos. (“It is important for Latinos/as to understand the pollution sources that are affecting their health and shortening their lives, and it is important for EPA help protect them.”)
Please include Iowa in the Good Neighbor Plan.
Thank you.