Speaking of Spew

Republic Reporter Shaun McKinnon has a pretty balanced article on the costs and benefits of the Navajo Generating Station.  Unfortunately the picture and shrill caption that accompanies the article dramatically reduces the credibility of the entire story.

   
Whoever chose the word "spews" was obviously trying to create as negative an image as possible. 

What's worse is that in addition to being inflammatory, the caption isn't accurate.  While the plant obviously has emissions, this picture was clearly taken on a cold winter morning and the visible emissions are simply condensed water vapor--much like the contrails that you see from high altitude jet planes. 

Comments

[ron]

Greg, I am assuming you have the EPA air-quality results to back up your assertion. Care to share your source?

[Webster]

'Spew' falls right between 'emits' and 'barfs.'

[RonB]

I have contacted experts. That IS water vapor "spewing" from those stacks. Folks at the Republic are not only biased--they are stupid!

[Craig]

If they change "spews" to "gently wafts", would that soften the outrage here?

The visible plume from the stack may or may not, in fact, be water vapor (I don't have "experts" on speed dial), but that doesn't mean that the non-visible emissions aren't toxic pollutants.

[DGN]

What I would like to know is why the story made NO MENTION of the 1991 pact between the EPA and SRP to install scrubbers on that plant. Those scrubbers were installed and were made operational about 10 years ago. This, despite the fact that many scientists disputed the effectiveness of scrubber technology and cited 19TH CENTURY accounts of a haze at the Canyon. In other words, the feds pressured SRP to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on an unproven technology that might not fix the haze problem. Now, the feds want to do it all over again. The Republic covered the 1991 story. Heck, President GHW Bush himself went to the Canyon to sign the pact. It's not as though this would be difficult to cite in a contemporaneous story. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume the Republic either has lazy reporters and editors or is trying to manipulate the news by essentially repeating the current EPA talking points. It might actually be a good story in itself to determine why the current scrubbers aren't eliminating the haze. Did someone screw up? Were engineers/ scientists wrong? Will the Republic find out? Answers to these and other questions apparently are NOT forthcoming.

[Name2]

How about balance in today's article, by Dennis Wagner?

"Six months ago, Shirley accepted the Nuclear-Free Future Award in Norway for collaborating with environmental groups to fight uranium mines near the Grand Canyon. Shirley, a Christian, said he consulted with Navajo traditionalists before deciding that carbon-spewing power plants and open-pit coal mines do not damage the Earth."

What does Shirley's religious affiliation have to do with the issue?

"Carbon-spewing" ?

Just when you think the 'reporters' at the Republic get it, something like this sneaks through.

[North Valley Republican]

You "non-experts" should drift out towards the west side of Maricopa County on a cool winter morning and see the "toxic" water vapor fumes pouring out in giant clouds. The facts are clear, the Republic lies, if only by omitting facts.

[North Valley Republican]

...from the nuclear power plant.

[Jack]

The environmental controls are NOT designed to reduce toxic emissions. The issue is that National Parks and Wilderness Areas are "Class I" visibility areas and if pollution leads to a reduction in visibility, you have reduced the value of the natural asset. In other words, this regulation has nothing to do with protecting health and safety (of humans or critters). It is only designed to protect an aesthetic standard. It is not entirely clear that controlling these emissions will reduce haze as there are also a number of people who like to burn firewood on cold nights and that too can contribute to regional haze.

[Veritas Vincit]

Either the moron who wrote the caption is stupid and doesn't know what condensation is, or their too biased to keep their current job.

[todd]

"The plant releases more than 19 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. In 2004, it was the nation’s fifth largest power plant emitter of carbon dioxide and eleventh largest emitter of nitrogen oxides.[2]"

does this qualify as spewing? i think it does.

[RonB]

Get with the program, Todd: It has to do with captioning the photo--that was water vapor, not pollutants spewing. If the reporter wanted to include the info you suggest, so be it. But do it in the body of the story, not erroneously captioning a photo. It's not only incorrect, it's slanting the news with an anti-coal bias. (Isn't that a hate crime?)

[Mark Smith]

Didn't a similar thing happen about 15 years ago? I seem to recall that one of the local papers (probably the Tribune) published a picture of exhaust emitting from the power station in Tempe on the northwest corner of McClintock and University. The picture accompanied a story about pollution, so instead of just showing an unadultered picture of water vapor emitting from what appeared to be a smoke stack, the editors darkened the vapor to make it appear like smoke.

Does anyone else remember this? I believe the paper issued a correction and an apology after the photo tampering was revealed.

[todd]

RonB - so because the pollutants are invisible it is wrong to mention it in the caption - yeah that makes a lot of sense.