Richmond Polluting Power Plant

Write to Richmond City Council to protest their plan! Meeting June 4 at 2PM, requires your presence to discourage this insanity. write to jreardon [at] igc.org (Juan Reardon) for details.

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SEIU Healthcare Workers Union Local 250 Resolution on the Proposed Power Plant in Richmond
(Adopted by unanimous vote of the Executive Board, May 24, 2001)

WHEREAS a 500 Megawatt power plant proposed to be placed in the city of Richmond would produce and release into the environment a mix of pollutants which will affect the health of Richmond residents;

WHEREAS Richmond residents already are overburdened by the ill effects of toxic pollutants, illegal chemical releases and industrial accidents;

WHEREAS every year thousands of residents of the greater Richmond Area are hospitalized with diagnoses which can considered caused and/or aggravated by environmental pollutants*;

WHEREAS a great many Local 250 members living in the Greater Richmond Area would be adversely affected by increases in pollution;

WHEREAS Contra Costa County is already contributing more than its share to California's response to the electricity shortfall with two recently approved new power plants;

WHEREAS, the present energy crisis is not an act of nature. It is the result of profiteering by power producers and by the mistaken policies of utility de-regulation;

WHEREAS, the solution to the present energy crisis must be centered in a move toward public control of the power system and a focus on more renewable energy resources;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the SEIU Local 250 opposes the initiative to plan for and build a power plant in the City of Richmond;

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Union endorses the goals of the Richmond Alliance for Green Public Power and Environmental Justice, of stopping the Richmond power plant initiative and organizing the communities of Richmond for clean, affordable and public power.

*Based on California Hospital Discharge Data 1995-1997



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