Medical Doctors Brief Congress on Biomass Energy Health Hazards

Three med­ical doc­tors and a sci­en­tist pre­sent­ed the first-ever Con­gres­sion­al brief­ing on the health haz­ards of bio­mass incin­er­a­tion in the U.S. Con­gress in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. on Sep­tem­ber 25, 2012. The brief­ing was arranged and spon­sored by Save Amer­i­ca’s Forests and the pre­sen­ta­tions can be viewed online here.

Pedi­a­tri­cians William Sam­mons, M.D., of Mass­a­chu­setts and Nor­ma Kreilein, M.D., of Indi­ana, William Black­ley, M.D. of North Car­oli­na, and Rachel Smolk­er, Ph.D., co-direc­tor of Bio­fu­el­watch, edu­cat­ed the attend­ing staff of the U.S. Sen­ate and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on the tox­ic air pol­lu­tants emit­ted from bio­mass incin­er­a­tor smoke­stacks and their impacts on human health. 

[Left to right]: Dr. Rachel Smolk­er, Carl Ross, Dr. William Black­ley, Dr. Nor­ma Kreilein

A flag has been plant­ed,” said Carl Ross, who mod­er­at­ed the brief­ing and is exec­u­tive direc­tor of Save America’s Forests, based in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Until now, Ross explained, the only Con­gres­sion­al brief­in­gs on bio­mass incin­er­a­tor ener­gy had been giv­en by mem­bers of the bio­mass indus­try itself. The brief­ing had a pow­er­ful impact on those present, accord­ing to Ross, some “gasp­ing” at slides demon­strat­ing that bio­mass incin­er­a­tors emit air pol­lu­tion sim­i­lar to—and in many ways worse than—coal facil­i­ties, and can cause health prob­lems that would increase with a nation­al expan­sion of bio­mass energy.

The four pre­sen­ters used the most recent sci­ence to demon­strate that bio­mass incin­er­a­tors can­not pro­duce “clean” ener­gy, and their main rec­om­men­da­tion to Con­gress was that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment stop sub­si­diz­ing bio­mass incinerators.

Health Impacts of Pol­lu­tion from Bio­mass Incinerators

In her pre­sen­ta­tion, Health Impacts of Pol­lu­tion From Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tors: Dirty Ener­gy Comes From Smoke Stacks, Dr. Rachel Smolk­er of Bio­fu­el­watch, an inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion based in the U.S. and U.K., gave an overview of the prob­lems with bio­mass ener­gy, explain­ing how dirty incin­er­a­tion com­petes with gen­uine­ly clean ener­gy sources, such as solar pow­er, under the guise of “green” ener­gy. Unlike solar pan­els, Smolk­er explained, bio­mass incin­er­a­tors “require ongo­ing fuel inputs and result in ongo­ing pol­lu­tion out­puts, that caus­es dis­eases, pain and suf­fer­ing and rais­es health care costs.” 

Smolk­er list­ed the air pol­lu­tants emit­ted from bio­mass incin­er­a­tors, includ­ing par­tic­u­late mat­ter (PM), Nitro­gen oxides (Nox), Sul­fur diox­ide (SO2), heavy met­als (i.e. mer­cury and lead), Volatile Organ­ic Com­pounds (VOCs), Car­bon monox­ide (CO), Haz­ardous Air Pol­lu­tants, and diox­ins. Smolk­er pro­vid­ed data show­ing how bio­mass is not only the dirt­i­est form of so-called “renew­able” ener­gy, but can actu­al­ly emit high­er lev­els of par­tic­u­late mat­ter, Volatile Organ­ic Com­pounds, and ammo­nia than a coal-fired plant, the dirt­i­est of fos­sil fuels.

Smolk­er informed the group that 80% of bio­mass incin­er­a­tors in the U.S. have been cit­ed for vio­la­tions of air pol­lu­tion laws. She also dis­cussed how facil­i­ties pro­duce wood ash at vary­ing lev­els of tox­i­c­i­ty, har­bor­ing such con­t­a­m­i­nants as diox­ins, lead, zinc, cad­mi­um and radioac­tive Cesium-137, with this ash often sold to farm­ers as a soil amendment.

Human Health Effects of Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tors: Ultra­fine Particles

Bill Sam­mons, MD, a pedi­a­tri­cian based in Williamstown, Mass­a­chu­setts, pre­sent­ed Human Health Effects of Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tors: Ultra­fine Par­ti­cles. Dr. Sam­mons has been trav­el­ing the coun­try talk­ing to com­mu­ni­ties, elect­ed offi­cials, and the media about the health haz­ards from burn­ing bio­mass, while encour­ag­ing oth­er health care pro­fes­sion­als to join him in pub­licly voic­ing their concerns. 

Dr. Sam­mons dis­cussed the size dif­fer­ences of par­tic­u­late mat­ter (PM), includ­ing ultra­fine PM 10— which are 10,000 times small­er than a millimeter—and PM 2.5 nanopar­ti­cles, which are 100,000 times small­er than a millimeter—and their for­ma­tion. Sam­mons deter­mined that exist­ing PM reg­u­la­tions are “inef­fec­tive” and that bio­mass incin­er­a­tion “pro­duces a high­er num­ber of par­ti­cles emit­ted than any oth­er fuel, includ­ing coal.”

Sam­mons insist­ed that “until the per­mit­ting process sets lim­its based on num­ber of par­ti­cles emit­ted, the pop­u­la­tion will con­tin­ue to be at increased risk,” cit­ing a 2010 study find­ing PM to be respon­si­ble for up to 17% of the decrease in U.S. life expectan­cy over the past twen­ty years.

The pedi­a­tri­cian revealed the lim­it­ed effec­tive­ness of incin­er­a­tor pol­lu­tion con­trols, such as elec­tro­sta­t­ic pre­cip­i­ta­tors (ESPs), refer­ring to stud­ies demon­strat­ing a “pen­e­tra­tion win­dow” for very small par­ti­cles “where the col­lec­tion effi­cien­cy can be as low as 70–80%.” Sam­mons referred to a com­pi­la­tion of North Amer­i­can data which showed a lack of a “dis­cernible thresh­old below which PM post no health risk to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion,” mean­ing any expo­sure to PM can be harmful.

Sam­mons ref­er­enced a U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) report stat­ing that “the over­all evi­dence is con­sis­tent with a causal rela­tion­ship between PM 2.5 expo­sure and car­dio­vas­cu­lar mor­bid­i­ty and mor­tal­i­ty,” or heart attacks. Dr. Sam­mons warned that PM 2.5 and small­er are “not specif­i­cal­ly reg­u­lat­ed or account­ed for in the per­mit­ting process,” cit­ing a study demon­strat­ing that short term increas­es in PM 2.5 lev­els kill tens of thou­sands of peo­ple in the U.S. every year.

Sam­mons con­clud­ed his pre­sen­ta­tion by list­ing the human health impacts of par­tic­u­late expo­sure, includ­ing “low­er birth weight and increased inci­dence of pre­ma­ture deliv­ery,” a 300% increase in asth­ma, and a 20% decrease in lung func­tion, sim­i­lar to the effects of smoking.

A Pediatrician’s Per­spec­tive on Air Pol­lu­tion and Children

Nor­ma Kreilein, MD, Fel­low of the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics, from Jasper, Indi­ana, pre­sent­ed A Pediatrician’s Per­spec­tive on Air Pol­lu­tion and Chil­dren, with a Focus on Inflam­ma­tion

Dr. Kreilein relat­ed her expe­ri­ence work­ing with chil­dren and infants suf­fer­ing from lung dis­ease, remind­ing those present that “each patient is a real per­son in a real fam­i­ly, not just a diag­no­sis, sta­tis­tic, or cost lia­bil­i­ty.” Bio­mass incin­er­a­tion pro­duces air pol­lu­tion that “trig­gers inflam­ma­tion,” explained Kreilein, and it this inflam­ma­tion that is “respon­si­ble for disease.”

In the case of asth­ma, inflam­ma­tion caus­es “air­way swelling and more mucus, lim­it­ing air flow and clear­ance.” Kreilein iden­ti­fied par­tic­u­late mat­ter as a “potent inflam­ma­to­ry trig­ger,” pos­ing a greater risk to chil­dren who spend more time out­side than adults and who “breathe in more air pol­lu­tants per pound of body weight.”

Expo­sure to pol­lu­tion over the long term can harm a “child’s devel­op­ing body, espe­cial­ly lungs, brain, and immune sys­tem,” warned the pedi­a­tri­cian. Fur­ther, a child’s small­er size means inflam­ma­tion of the lungs is “more sig­nif­i­cant to air­flow and clearance.”

Dr. Kreilein dis­cussed oth­er con­di­tions that could result from the inhala­tion of bio­mass incin­er­a­tion byprod­ucts, includ­ing Squa­mous Meta­pla­sia, which can be cured “only if trig­ger (pol­lu­tion) is removed.” If not, she cau­tioned, the “next step is cancer.”

Inflam­ma­tion

Diox­ins Dam­age Chil­dren and Adults

William Black­ley, MD, Fel­low in the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Fam­i­ly Prac­tice out of Pied­mont, North Car­oli­na con­clud­ed the brief­ing with his pre­sen­ta­tion, Diox­ins Dam­age Chil­dren and Adults

Dr. Black­ley recount­ed how when a bio­mass incin­er­a­tor was pro­posed for his town in 2008, devel­op­ers promised “clean ener­gy,” but a clos­er inves­ti­ga­tion revealed sig­nif­i­cant air pol­lu­tion con­cerns. As soon as “physi­cians, cit­i­zens and lead­ers con­front­ed this com­pa­ny about their tox­ic emis­sions and health risks,” said Black­ley, “the com­pa­ny qui­et­ly slipped out of town.”

Diox­ins, a byprod­uct of bio­mass incin­er­a­tion and oth­er forms of com­bus­tion, are clas­si­fied as Per­sis­tent Organ­ic Pol­lu­tants and are one of the “most tox­ic chem­i­cals known to man.” Dr. Black­ley not­ed “inter­na­tion­al con­cern” with diox­in and cit­ed a 2012 EPA report show­ing a “56% increase in diox­ins from wood burn­ing from 1987 to 2010.” Diox­ins are prob­lem­at­ic because they are “invis­i­ble and odor­less,” they trig­ger “no warn­ing signs of expo­sure or dam­age” to the human body, and “there’s no med­ical treat­ment to remove dioxins.” “

Almost all bio­mass con­tains chlo­rine,” explained Black­ley, so when “hydro­car­bons like trees, rail­road ties, tires, poul­try lit­ter, grass, trash, garbage, etc. are burned in the pres­ence of chlo­rine, diox­ins are cre­at­ed.” Diox­ins “exit the smoke­stack and set­tle on soil, in water and on leaves” and col­lect in bio­mass ash, which is often spread on agri­cul­tur­al fields as a soil amend­ment. Diox­ins bio-accu­mu­late, or increase in poten­cy, in humans after con­sum­ing ani­mal prod­ucts laced with the tox­ic sub­stance, such as beef, poul­try, fish, eggs and dairy products.

“Bio­mass elec­tric­i­ty is expen­sive, espe­cial­ly when health care costs from result­ing dis­eases are tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion,” said Black­ley, warn­ing that “any lev­el of diox­ins increas­es the risk of can­cer.” “The most tox­ic effect of diox­ins is on the devel­op­ing fetus, new­born and child,” accord­ing to Dr. Black­ley, and that “a few parts per tril­lion of diox­in expo­sure can be enough to cause abnor­mal development.”

Health effects of diox­in expo­sure include, but are not lim­it­ed to “pre­ma­ture deliv­ery, reduced response to vac­ci­na­tions, immune sys­tem sup­pres­sion, reduced IQ, decrease[d] sperm qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty, type II Dia­betes,” hyper­ten­sion, heart dis­ease, ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis (hard­en­ing of the arter­ies), and can­cer. Black­ley was skep­ti­cal about the effec­tive­ness of smoke­stack pol­lu­tion con­trol devices, explain­ing that “the pri­ma­ry way to reduce diox­ins is to not cre­ate any more of them.”

“Incen­tiviz­ing bio­mass burn­ing,” con­clud­ed the North Car­oli­na physi­cian, “is like pay­ing busi­ness­es to build and light 300 foot cig­a­rettes in Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties and to force every­one, includ­ing chil­dren, to breathe the sec­ond­hand smoke. “

Carl Ross said Save America’s Forests is plan­ning to arrange future Con­gres­sion­al brief­in­gs on oth­er harm­ful impacts of bio­mass incin­er­a­tion, in con­junc­tion with grass­roots allies around the coun­try, includ­ing the Anti-Bio­mass Incin­er­a­tion Cam­paign. Top­ics may include exac­er­ba­tion of cli­mate change, cost of sub­si­dies to the U.S. tax­pay­ers, inten­sive use of lim­it­ed fresh­wa­ter reserves, U.S. and glob­al defor­esta­tion and for­est degra­da­tion, and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice issues.

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