Where There's Smoke, There's Pollution

(Cross-posted from my blog, Kaufman's Gull)

If you want to find out about coal pollution in Central Wisconsin,  a good source is The San Francisco Examiner and the Associated Press.

It seems that a big, new coal-fired power plant near Wausau was belching a thick, dark smoke which is usually a sure sign of pollution, particularly particulates. (The Wisconsin DNR was looking the other way. Heck, it's just some smoke.)

When the Sierra Club pointed this smokestack pollution out, Wisconsin Public Service Corp. said the smoke was not as it appeared, that the apparent pollution was just an illusion, for the alleged pollution was being controlled. (This is the same fine corporation that was fined in 2006 for withholding  pollution-control information from state regulators.)

The 4th District Court of Appeals ruled that they, too, could see the dirty smoke and that the DNR and the power utility should also be able to see it if they looked closely enough at the stack and the Clean Air Act.

What the judges couldn't see (most people can't) is the nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide that the Sierra Club wanted tougher controls on, too.

Pollution? What pollution?

If we can't see it, it isn't there.