Dear Minnesota Public Utilities Commission,

I have chosen to sign this petition to eliminate Xcel Energy’s Sherco coal power plant in order to alleviate respiratory preventative illnesses, our drinking water from toxin, and protect our favorite fishing, hiking, and canoeing sanctuaries in Minnesota.

Sherco 1 & 2 is the largest coal plant and source of carbon pollution contributing to significant health impacts including asthma, lung cancer, and other respiratory ailments for Minnesotans. Many adults contract asthma like Stephanie Spitzeran, a knitter enthusiast who takes four (costly) inhalers a day and has used her story to voice concern for Minnesota’s future; hear her story on MinnPost.

Clean Air task force shows Sherco’s troubling statistics on citizen’s health; in 2011 alone the plant contributed to 92 deaths, 150 heart attacks, 1,600 asthma attacks, 69 hospital admissions, 59 chronic bronchitis, and 100 asthma ER visits. 

Sherco emits eight million tons of carbon pollution every year which is essentially producing 2.7 million cars worth of carbon emissions each year. Not to mention the 10,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, sulfur, and pounds of mercury pumped into the air we breathe.

I submit this letter to declare my stance against dirty energy and demand clean energy to ensure cleaner air to breathe, cleaner water to drink, and better health for myself and my neighbors. I call on Xcel Energy and PUC to develop a plan to phase out all of its remaining coal plants and replace them with wind, solar and energy efficiency beginning with Sherco 1 & 2.