By Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Published: Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The National Resources Defense Council says that residents of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida live in states with the most toxic air pollution from coal- and oil-fired power plants.

The council released a study today that ranked Ohio as the worst; Pennsylvania the second-worst, with Florida third-worst.

The study found that nearly half of all the toxic air pollution reported from industrial sources in the United States comes from coal- and oil-fired power plants and that power plants are the single largest industrial source of toxic air pollution in 28 states and the District of Columbia.

"Power plants are the biggest industrial toxic air polluters in our country, putting children and families at risk by dumping deadly and dangerous poisons into the air we breathe," Dan Lashof, Climate Center Director at NRDC, said in a statement. "Tougher standards are long overdue."

The council used data from the Environmental Protection Agency`s Toxics Release Inventory. The analysis was jointly released today by NRDC and Physicians for Social Responsibility.

 

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