Massachusetts Medical Society Opposes Biomass Power, Cites Health Concerns

Vital Signs: Decem­ber 2009/ Jan­u­ary 2010

On Decem­ber 5, the MMS adopt­ed pol­i­cy oppos­ing pro­posed bio­mass pow­er plants on the grounds that they pose an “unac­cept­able health risk.” The move fol­lows a deci­sion by state Ener­gy and Envi­ron­men­tal Affairs Sec­re­tary Ian Bowles to order a six-month study of the envi­ron­men­tal impact of bio­mass pow­er plants.

Bio­mass com­bus­tion cre­ates pow­er by burn­ing wood from har­vest­ed trees or from con­struc­tion debris. State and fed­er­al “renew­able ener­gy” incen­tives have spurred the devel­op­ment of pro­posed bio­mass pow­er plants in Rus­sell, Green­field, Spring­field, and Pittsfield.

Soci­ety mem­ber James Wang, M.D., who lives in the Pio­neer Val­ley, first heard about the Rus­sell plant in 1997 and became increas­ing­ly con­cerned about the poten­tial neg­a­tive envi­ron­men­tal and health effects.

Mean­while, the local Amer­i­can Lung Asso­ci­a­tion chap­ter came out against bio­mass com­bus­tion ener­gy because of its impact on health.

“About 40 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion in Ham­p­den Coun­ty is con­sid­ered at high risk for med­ical com­pli­ca­tions from increased pol­lu­tion,” Dr. Wang noted.

This sum­mer, oth­er MMS mem­bers con­tact­ed the Soci­ety to raise con­cerns about the issue. “Hun­dreds of mod­ern epi­demi­o­log­i­cal stud­ies have described an asso­ci­a­tion between ele­vat­ed par­tic­u­late air pol­lu­tion lev­els and mor­tal­i­ty and oth­er adverse health effects,” said MMS mem­ber Jef­fer­son Dick­ey, M.D., who prac­tices in Turn­ers Falls. Those health effects include increased car­diopul­monary symp­toms, asth­ma attacks, emer­gency room vis­its, and hospitalizations.

In addi­tion to par­tic­u­lates, the nitro­gen oxide emis­sions from bio­mass com­bus­tion form ozone, which reacts in the pul­monary air­ways to cause symp­toms such as chest pain, short­ness of breath, cough­ing, and wheez­ing, Dr. Dick­ey said.

In Octo­ber, Dr. Wang brought the issue before the exec­u­tive board of the Ham­p­den Dis­trict Med­ical Soci­ety. Call­ing the plants “an unac­cept­able threat to the health of cit­i­zens in the Pio­neer Val­ley,” the dis­trict board vot­ed to oppose the plants, a move that gar­nered the atten­tion of local papers and the Boston Globe.

Dr. Dick­ey brought the issue to the atten­tion of the MMS Com­mit­tee on Envi­ron­men­tal and Occu­pa­tion­al Health. After review­ing the data, the com­mit­tee joint­ly spon­sored the report rec­om­mend­ing MMS opposition.

The com­mit­tee is team­ing with the MMS Com­mit­tee on Pub­lic Health and the Har­vard School of Pub­lic Health to spon­sor the sixth Annu­al Pub­lic Health Lead­er­ship Forum, which will take place on April 28, 2010, and will focus on the health aspects of ener­gy pol­i­cy and practices.

Although bio­mass fuel is con­sid­ered a renew­able resource, “it is a big mis­nomer” to con­sid­er it clean, based on what’s com­ing out of the stacks, said Rick Don­ahue, M.D., a mem­ber of the Com­mit­tee on Envi­ron­men­tal and Occu­pa­tion­al Health. Last year, the MMS adopt­ed the committee’s rec­om­men­da­tions for edu­ca­tion about the health impacts of fos­sil fuels and advo­ca­cy to boost devel­op­ment of health­i­er and safer ener­gy sources.

“This is not a polit­i­cal issue for us,” Dr. Wang con­clud­ed. “It’s a health issue.”

– Robyn Alie