EPA’s AirNow site shows today is a “red alert” day for particle pollution in Western MA, possibly due to greater woodstove use after the big weekend snowstorm left many without heat and power across the state.
This region is prone to bad air quality, including high ozone levels in the spring and summer, as we've shown before.
Adding to this pollution with new sources of combustion in this region, whether it be huge electricity-only biomass facilities proposed for Springfield, Russell, and Greenfield Massachusetts, or a smaller burner being considered by UMASS Amherst, is a bad idea. Biomass power plants won't reduce residential wood-burning and the pollution it produces one iota, but will add hundreds of tons more new particulate matter and ozone-precursors to the air.