We need clean air more than power

To the editor:

Air quality in the Mat-Su Valley is a vulnerable necessity to our quality of life here. As many of us have noticed, the smog that has hovered above the fairly clean air of Southcentral Alaska for about a week now has not received much coverage in our media. Referring to a May 3 Alaska Dispatch article titled “Southcentral Alaska skies clouded with Chinese pollution,” the pollution from coal plants in China’s Shanxi province traveled 5,000 miles in a period of 14 days. These conditions can very well be persistent to our area and actually from within the MSB itself with coal proposals on the table.

Taking into consideration that we do need power, we need clean air substantially more. May we look into cleaner resources like those in Iceland, harnessing the long hours of sunlight we get in the summer and the winds that blow all year. Using these resources that are proving to be worthy of greater use, we can sustain a cleaner environment for us, the lands, waters and wildlife that draws the masses to our state.

George Pletnikoff Jr.

Palmer

Written as self-

representation and not of the

Mat-Valley Coalition