Charter St. plant must go

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

An editorial from The Capital Times:

The state of Wisconsin and its flagship university -- UW-Madison -- ought to be in the forefront in meeting at least the spirit of the nation's Clean Air Act.

Instead, according to a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club last week, greenhouse gas emissions in Wisconsin have increased 26 percent during the 1990s while the national average has been 20 percent.

Part of the reason is that 70 percent of the electricity we use is generated by coal-fired power plants and even more are slated to come on line within the next few years, which will only add to the problem.

Further, right here in Madison, the UW and the state's Department of Administration jointly operate one of the oldest and worst polluting plants -- the more than 50-year-old coal-fired Charter Street plant just south of campus.

The Sierra Club, after working for more than a year to get the state and the UW to close the plant and pointing out that the new gas-fired "cogen" plant on the west end of campus can meet the needs of the UW, has now filed a lawsuit to have the UW and the state found in violation of the Clean Air Act.

That's a sad state of affairs. But we understand the Sierra Club's decision to take these governmental units to court. The Charter plant, after all, has been cited as one of Dane County's largest single sources of soot, smog, mercury, arsenic and global warming pollution, according to the suit.

While Madison Gas & Electric has agreed to either shut or convert the old Blount Street plant by 2011, the state and UW have continued to stonewall the Sierra Club. That's unacceptable, and the Sierra Club is well within its rights to proceed with a lawsuit.