HealthLink plans protest at Salem electricity plant

SALEM – Members of HealthLink, the North Shore public health and environmental protection advocacy group, plan to protest outside the Salem Harbor Station electricity generation plant Sunday, March 1.HealthLink Executive Director Martha Dansdill of Swampscott said the noon demonstration will coincide with the nationwide action in Washington, D.C. aimed at pressuring President Barack Obama to create sustainable energy policies. Demonstrators will also stage protest rallies on the same day at three other coal fired power plants in Massachusetts – two in Somerset and one in Northampton.”People voted for a change in energy policies last November,” said HealthLink activist Lynn Nadeau of Marblehead. “We want our representatives at all levels of government to stand up to the dirty energy lobby and pass the energy and climate policies we truly need.”Nadeau said HealthLink expects those representatives “to listen to what science is telling us and act immediately to reduce emissions, create jobs and re-engage globally to tackle the climate and economic crises.”According to Nadeau, the Salem electricity plant owned by Virginia-based Dominion has not done enough to meet sustainability goals. “We need to transition to renewable energy sources, and if we still need to use a fossil fuel to generate electricity in the interim, then it must be done in as clean a manner using the best available control technology economically achievable, she said, adding that such technology means applying modern scrubbers and other pollution-control devices and not simply making small improvements by switching to lower-emission fuels.”Of all the fossil fuels, coal is the dirtiest and has the biggest immediate impact,” said Dansdill. “From mining, to burning, to waste disposal, coal threatens our health and safety. Burning coal releases toxins which are linked to respiratory illness, cardiac disease and even premature death.”Gail McCormick of Lynn, a longtime HealthLink advocate, said the concept of “clean coal” is fiction. “Coal has the highest carbon content of all fossil fuels and is the worst global warming culprit.Avi Chomsky, among the scheduled speakers at the March 1 event, said the demonstrators will stand with others across the country “to ask that our nation and our state turn away from the use of unsustainable, dirty fossil fuels and begin to build a new future for the people of the commonwealth, the nation and the world.”HealthLink issued five goals its members would like to see adopted as governmental policies – reduce the use of energy as a society; foster clean renewable sources; distributing resources globally in a way that supports worldwide peace and human welfare; base economic policies on fulfilling human needs and support a healthy environment for the entire community.Volunteers are needed to make protest posters at the HealthLink office in the Church of the Holy Name on Saturday, Feb. 28 starting at 11:30 a.m.