Massachusetts Medical Society Adopts Policy Opposing Biomass Power Plants

Decem­ber 9, 2009

Con­tact: Richard P. Gul­la
rgulla@mms.org
(781) 434‑7101

Waltham, Mass. — Decem­ber 9, 2009 —  On the grounds that bio­mass pow­er plants pose an unac­cept­able risk to the public’s health by increas­ing air pol­lu­tion, the Mass­a­chu­setts Med­ical Soci­ety has adopt­ed a pol­i­cy oppos­ing three cur­rent­ly pro­posed large-scale bio­mass pow­er plants in Mass­a­chu­setts and urg­ing state gov­ern­ment to adopt poli­cies to min­i­mize the approval and con­struc­tion of new bio­mass plants. 

The pol­i­cy, pro­posed by the organization’s Com­mit­tee on Envi­ron­men­tal and Occu­pa­tion­al Health, was approved by the Society’s House of Del­e­gates at its inter­im meet­ing on Decem­ber 4.  The MMS House of Del­e­gates, com­prised of physi­cian mem­bers from across the state, sets pol­i­cy for the 22,000-member statewide physi­cian organization.

Cur­rent­ly, three large-scale plants are being pro­posed for west­ern Mass­a­chu­setts, in Rus­sell (Ham­p­den Coun­ty), Green­field (Franklin Coun­ty), and Spring­field (Ham­p­den Coun­ty).  The plants pro­pose to burn wood from har­vest­ed trees and/or con­struc­tion debris and will be sit­u­at­ed near neigh­bor­hoods, schools, and homes.

Jef­fer­son Dick­ey, M.D., an internist at the Com­mu­ni­ty Health Cen­ter of Franklin Coun­ty in Turn­ers Falls and a for­mer chair of the com­mit­tee, was one of the authors of the res­o­lu­tion adopt­ed as policy.

Dr. Dick­ey said “Air pol­lu­tion is a com­mon and nox­ious mix­ture of gasses, par­ti­cles, liq­uids, the vast major­i­ty of which comes from pow­er plants, indus­tri­al fur­naces and high-tem­per­a­ture indus­tri­al process­es, and trans­porta­tion, such as bus­es, trucks, cars, and small engines.

“Epi­demi­ol­o­gists have long rec­og­nized that air pol­lu­tion is asso­ci­at­ed with an increased risk of a broad range of med­ical prob­lems,” Dr. Dick­ey con­tin­ued, “from asth­ma attacks and decreased lung growth in chil­dren to increased lung dis­ease exac­er­ba­tions, emer­gency room use, hos­pi­tal­iza­tion rates, heart attacks, and death rates in adults.”

“Recent research and med­ical lit­er­a­ture reviews pro­vide graph­ic con­fir­ma­tion of the seri­ous­ness of the issue,” he said. “The equa­tion is sim­ple: the more air pol­lu­tion, the high­er the mor­tal­i­ty rate. Research has shown that low­er­ing air pol­lu­tion lev­els is asso­ci­at­ed with bet­ter health outcomes.”

Cur­rent state pol­i­cy con­sid­ers bio­mass fuel renew­able, because trees con­sumed as fuel are assumed to re-grow, and bio­mass elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion is eli­gi­ble for finan­cial incen­tives under the state’s Green Com­mu­ni­ties Act, which man­dates that an increas­ing pro­por­tion of the state’s pow­er be gen­er­at­ed from renew­able sources.

The pol­i­cy adopt­ed by the Med­ical Society’s con­tained four points: 

• urg­ing state gov­ern­ment to adopt poli­cies to min­i­mize the approval and con­struc­tion of new bio­mass plants, and instead pro­mote ener­gy effi­cien­cy and con­ser­va­tion and zero-pol­lu­tant
  emis­sions renew­able ener­gy technologies;
• oppos­ing the three cur­rent­ly pro­posed large-scale bio­mass pow­er plants in Mass­a­chu­setts on the grounds that each facil­i­ty pos­es an unac­cept­able pub­lic health risk;
• urg­ing state and fed­er­al gov­ern­ment through appro­pri­ate chan­nels  to remove large-scale bio­mass elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion plants from the list of tech­nolo­gies eli­gi­ble to receive renew­able ener­gy cred­its, fed­er­al stim­u­lus funds, and Mass­a­chu­setts Tech­nol­o­gy Col­lab­o­ra­tive loans, and there­by remove these incen­tives for their exis­tence; and
• urg­ing state gov­ern­ment to extend Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ty to small-scale bio­mass facil­i­ties to ensure that the most pro­tec­tive air pol­lu­tion emis­sions con­trols are utilized. 

The Mass­a­chu­setts Med­ical Soci­ety, with more than 20,000 physi­cians and stu­dent mem­bers, is ded­i­cat­ed to edu­cat­ing and advo­cat­ing for the patients and physi­cians of Mass­a­chu­setts. The Soci­ety pub­lish­es the New Eng­land Jour­nal of Med­i­cine, a lead­ing glob­al med­ical jour­nal and web site, and Jour­nal Watch alerts and newslet­ters cov­er­ing 13 spe­cial­ties. The Soci­ety is also a leader in con­tin­u­ing med­ical edu­ca­tion for health care pro­fes­sion­als through­out Mass­a­chu­setts, con­duct­ing a vari­ety of med­ical edu­ca­tion pro­grams for physi­cians and health care professionals.

Found­ed in 1781, MMS is the old­est con­tin­u­ous­ly oper­at­ing med­ical soci­ety in the coun­try. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.massmed.org, www.nejm.org, or www.jwatch.org.

[For more back­ground on the pas­sage of this pol­i­cy, see the Vital Signs arti­cle: Mass­a­chu­setts Med­ical Soci­ety Oppos­es Bio­mass Pow­er, Cites Health Con­cerns.]