I am not aware of any reports of air pollution in the Victoria area that are attributable to the current plant. On the assumption that a second one would not be built unless there is a need for additional electricity, and I am not volunteering to do without electricity, build away.

Nothing that comes out of the Coleto Creek smokestack is good for you, or why else would they build the gigantic stacks to poop all their poisons into the air supply? They should be called poopstacks! No vitamins or minerals of use to us come out of these stacks, just harmful crud! Just because the toxic gases are invisible to the naked eye means that the poisons have to be measured with sensitive devices rather than the eyes, and 99.99% of the gases are invisible to the eyes, but are toxic just the same and that's why federal pollution rules exist to try to regulate these poopstacks. The problem is many loopholes exist in the laws even today that allow too much air pollution from these coal-fired poopstacks. If the Coleto Creek poopstacks want to be safe, they need to emit cleaner air than they take into their boilers. Burning coal produces enormous tonnage of waste in terms of air pollution, bottom ash, fly ash, scrubber residues, waste water and more. Except for the electricity and jobs, everything from coal plants is dirty! Coal-fired power plants are an 18th century technology and emit too much toxic pollution.

nobody complains about issues due to the fact that the lake offers recreational activities, imo.

Now when you double the coal trains then Woodway and west side residents will start thier emotional public outcry.

Imo if they use scrubber, traps, filters or way ever they need to stop releases and the co. means well then w/ them out in the country I see no problem. Regualtors I assume check these guys regularly. Its hard I know when they taught us in elementary or we see images of that coal train polluting black smoke into the air.

Ask the PR staff thier protocol or latest emission data.

I just moved to the area about 3 years ago and didn't even know there WAS a coal fired power plant at coleto until they announced the 2nd one was going to be built. IMHO it seemed like no one is too upset about it due to the openness of what is going on and the fact that there is already a coal-fired plant providing us with electricity. It's not like the uranium mining - the initial drilling was done in secrecy because they could be secret. Also, I think the residents of the area are much less worried about air pollution than water contamination. You can see what comes out of the coal fired plant, but not radioactive contamination (until someone or something gets sick). It's all a matter of perception and the manner in which the information came out.

However, maybe there are a lot of people like me who just don't know what to think? As a country and a community, we aren't ready or positioned for a lot of green energy, so we have to make do with whatever we can get for now. So we push our green concerns aside for the time and wait until green energy technology gets within the reach of our pocketbooks.

Another point is that building the plant will provide jobs for the local area - something everyone wants at the moment. We all know someone who has been laid off or can't find work.

It might be a different story when that plant comes online.

I guess we need another coal plant to help us while the new nuclear plant is built!

Another coal unit can be built at Coleto Creek before anything else of the same MW output can be built. There's always some environmental/economical trade off no matter what fuel type is used.

GABE: When we started construction of Unit 4 of a coal fired power plant in Wyoming the smoke/flyash cloud from Units 1-3 could be seen for over 30 miles downwind. Upon completion of the experimental new "wet scrubber" on our unit you could only see a steam cloud exiting the smoke stack for about 50 yards then clear blue sky. A dragline bucket breached the impervious clay liner of the bottom ash pond and let all the water out. A month after the plant started up we could walk quite a distance out into the pond on the ridge of pea sized pieces of unburned coal and bottom ash beyond the outlet of the discharge line. We were transferred to a nuke job in Florida before any engineering modifications to the line were used. Eventually a new system of bag precipatators was employed for all 4 units. There are ways to reduce emissions from coal fired plants but I'm not up on the latest technology.