* WARNING: THIS IS AN UNOFFICIAL, INTRODUCTORY COPY OF THE BILL.
THE OFFICIAL COPY CONSIDERED BY THE CITY COUNCIL IS THE FIRST READER COPY.
INTRODUCTORY*
CITY OF BALTIMORE
COUNCIL BILL R
(Resolution)
Introduced by: Councilmember Kraft
A RESOLUTION ENTITLED
A COUNCIL RESOLUTION concerning
Title
Healthy Air for Maryland - In Support of the Healthy Air Act of 2006
FOR the purpose of encouraging the Maryland General Assembly, during the 2006 Legislative Session, to adopt meaningful Healthy Air Act legislation to reduce power plant pollution, with significant reduction in carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury.
Body
Recitals
According to recent reports, pollution from under-controlled coal-fired power plants causes approximately 670 premature deaths, 17,325 asthma attacks, and 101,977 lost workdays in Maryland each year. Approximately 1.1 million Maryland children live within 30 miles of a power plant, the area in which the greatest health impacts are felt. Power plants are responsible for 41 percent of total mercury emissions from all known sources. Each year in our nation, over 600,000 infants are born with an overexposure to mercury, which has been found to be especially harmful to the brain development of children in utero.
The Maryland Department of the Environment has imposed mercury related fish advisories on 183 miles of rivers within the State. In many of these cases, the human consumption of fish has been prohibited because of extreme levels of mercury contamination. Soot, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide emissions have been linked to cancer, heart disease, lung disease, ozon...
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