I hardly ever use this blog as a personal soapbox but the State Journal Register has taken to publishing OP/ED pieces and long letters from one James Monk “President” of the Illinois Energy Association extolling the virtues of coal and opposing proposed Cap and Trade Policies. So here is a letter they did not run:

Editor

State Journal Register

One Copley Plaza

Springfield, IL 62701

Emailed – 12/31/09

Dear Editor:

How ironic it must be to work at the SJ-R these days. First, on a single day, you run an OP/Ed piece by Ann Coulter that claims global warming is “all made up”.  On the back page of that same section you run an AP article about the many changes we humans will have to make to “adjust” to global warming. Are the facts overwhelming the “opinions” yet?

But it got worse on December 29th. On that day you ran a long letter to the editors by the appropriately named James Monk, President of Illinois Energy Association arguing that regulation of coal fired powerplant byproducts as hazardous waste will harm the economy of the nation. While on page 6, on the back of page 5, is a long article with the headline: MERCURY POLLUTION UP IN ILLINOIS. This was blamed on coal fired powerplants. Constiuent components of the coal byproducts can contain arsenic, beryllium, boron, cadmium, chromium, chromium VI, cobalt, lead, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, selenium, strontium, thallium, and vanadium, along with dioxins and PAH compounds. This sounds very toxic to me.

After the 200 million gallon spill in Tennessee, this 130 million lb. yearly ticking time bomb needs to be declared toxic and cleaned up. I don’t think that coal is as cheap to burn as some people claim. You SJ-R guys are only a page away from getting the facts (or truth) on the same page as the OP/Ed page, congratulations.

Doug Nicodemus

948 e. adams st.

riverton, IL  62561

629-7031

dougnic55@yahoo.com

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