What's most troubling is how close it is to Springfield's main hospitals and the widely promoted regional Medical District. The plant has no equipment to control nitrogen oxides (NOx), and no scrubbers for sulfur dioxide (SO2) or mercury.
These pollutants are known to cause a variety of health problems including respiratory problems, increased asthma attacks, emphysema, bronchitis, and can aggravate existing heart disease, leading to increased hospital admissions and premature death. It's a particular risk for children, the elderly, and people with lung diseases such as asthma.
The plant is four blocks away from the emergency rooms I went to when I had major childhood asthma attacks!
The one positive note, as the article points out, is that it uses a small volume of coal. But, the fact that you rarely see smoke coming out of the stack does not make it clean. There are dangerous pollutants coming from this plant regularly.
Sadly, I think this was Ryan Nave's last article for the Illinois Times. I'll miss the perspective and insights he brought to Springfield. Oddly enough, he also interviewed me for his first IT article back in June of 2005.