THE COAL KILLERS

EPA public hearing Dr I. Tucker of the Council for Environmental Balance (Box 7732, Louisville, KY 40207) offered to drink a solution of diluted sulfuric acid equivalent to that which a person might normally ingest over a period of several years. (The solution corresponding to a 94 hour intake is no more astringent than many soft drinks.)

But all of this is not quite to the point, for the EPA's enforcement of the clean air standard is not really meant to control SO² it has quite different aims, as their scrubber policy shows:

The alleged standard of 1.2 Ibs of SO² per million BTU can be met either by desulfurizing midwest or eastern coal, until it contains as little sulfur as western, low-sulfur coal; or by burning that western coal in the first place; or by blending the two in "compliance" coal.

But no, says the EPA, you can't get away with complying with our standard; you must use scrubbers to clean 85% of the SO. present in stack gases, and we don't care two hoots what kind of coal you burn. If the EPA were in the weightwatching business, it would order both Bella Abzug and Don Knotts to shed 150 Ibs. The cost of this little exercise in killing coal-fired electricity is $200 biilion, and the bill will be sent to you and me.

What the EPA does to the utilities, the Dpt. of the Interior does to the coal industry.The National Coal Association has now filed brietf in the US Court of Appeals, D.C., against the incestuous deal between the NRDC and the DOI (AtE May 78); meanwhile coal leasing is. as good as dead. Like other energy production, coa! is being stifled with paper and red tape. In a recent news release by the DOI on the adverse environmental impact by the expansion of an existing mine in the sparsely populated S.E. part of Montana we read a list of 10 points, one of which is ''Doubling the train traffic on the 7.5 mile rail spur could increase the hazard of train-vehicle and train-livestock collisions, increase delays at rail crossings and increase pollution and noise along the right of way."

[More: E.Guecione, "The SO. emission fraud," and "An open letter to President Carter," Coal Mining & Processing, Nov .1978 and Jan. 1979, respectively; W'.N. Poundstone, "SO² a burning issue,'' Coal,M. & P., Nov. 1978.]