The View from My Window

The view outside my front window.

Step out onto any doorstep in Homer City, Pennsylvania and the one site you are certain to see in the distance is the Homer City Generating Station. For the past eighteen years of my life the power plant has been a constant daily image. Every morning on my way to school I headed straight towards those grey smokestacks, and they were the first things I saw in the horizon as I left. However, the Homer City Generating Station is much more than just a physical landmark in this town; it is the income for many families, the future place of employment for many students, and the power provider for about two million homes (EME).

The view from Homer-Center High School

Although the generating station has always been a source of income and of economic benefit to the area, there has been a constant struggle between the power plant and the environment. The plant has been a major polluter, ranking both nationally and in the state. At one point the plant was reported to have released 8,500,000 pounds of toxic chemicals, including mercury, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide. The facility has also incurred numerous fines from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for violating the Pennsylvania Clean Streams Law. Although the Homer City Generating Station has had its historic battles with nature, the recent buzz about Global Warming and the overwhelming amount of carbon dioxide emission from the plant has brought about some recent changes. A scrubber, which is an air pollution control device used to removed unwanted, harmful particles from industrial exhaust streams, was added to one of the three cooling towers of the plant. The result was a significant decrease in the amount of toxic chemicals exiting the plant; in 2002 the plant emitted 595 pounds of toxic waste, a vast improvement compared to the 2,963 pounds emitted in 1998 (Homer). Although the benefits of preserving such a facility might be difficult to pinpoint now, the vast environmental improvements the plant has made and continues to make are beginning to make a major difference.

The Homer City Generating Station is home to the tallest chimney in the United States.

The Homer City Generating Station is a coal run power plant, which requires the transportation coal from the mines to the plant. This task was once carried out by coal trucks, but in recent years the supplies have been brought to the plant by train. This small change has already had a multitude of effects. Regular speed trains pollute much less than cars and trucks cluttering the roadways, they require less energy to move, and transport a larger amount of supplies more efficiently (Transportation). The Department of Environmental Protection recently conducted a harm/benefit analysis on the Homer City Generating Station and concluded that the benefits of this station greatly outweigh its potential environmental harms (Newsroom).
This plant provides electricity for millions of homes, including those in New York City. Electricity has come to be a resource that citizens of the United States cannot live or function effectively without. Without the electricity provided by not only the Homer City Generating Station, but also power plants across the country, no one would be able to go about his or her daily lives. The conservation and adaptation of this historical power plant has aided not only efficiency but also human survival. Without the existence of such power plants the food we consume and harvest would be much more difficult to obtain and distribute. This facility is not only providing us with the power we oftentimes take for granted in our daily lives, but it is providing a livelihood for numerous individuals across the country. The plant itself is home to approximately 260 employees, but it also provides jobs and income for the coal miners and transporters (EME). The power plant has spent a great deal of money trying to make the facility as environmentally friendly as possible, in turn making Homer City as safe as possible.

Another aspect that must be considered when discussing this facility’s role in the environment is the cost of tearing the building down. The generating station is housed on 2,400 acres and includes a 1,800 acre reservoir (EME). The cost of properly tearing down this very large facility would much greater than the money put in to preserve it. Along with the disposal of the building and the plant would in turn make over half of the residents of Homer City unemployed. There has consistently been time and effort put into researching how to make this facility as environmentally friendly as possible. The facility has come leaps and bounds in just my lifetime and is continuing to do so. Soon enough the hope of the community is that the environmental effects of the plant will no longer need to be in question.

A scrubber was added to the cooling tower to reduce pollution.

One thing is for certain, the Homer City Generating Station has become a necessity in many individuals’ lives, homes and communities. It has become a part of our town, a neighbor, and constant visual reminder of the great effort put into making it function safely and effectively every day. The view outside my window may not be ideal for everyone, but it has been a constant reminder of the necessities of having a clean and safe environment to live in and the effects of what can happen when it’s not.

Our everyday reminder.

Works Cited

Homer City Generating Station. EME Homer City Generation L.P., 2005. Web. Apr. 2010.

Homer City Generating Station. Web. Apr. 2010.

Newsroom. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, 2009. Web. Apr. 2010.

Transportation. PolluteLess.com. Web. Apr. 2010.