In an April 2 Augusta Chronicle news article, a Georgia Environmental Protection Division environmental regulator said that the proposed coal-fired power plant for Washington County is unlikely to affect air quality in Richmond County.

The regulator must not have taken into account that the prevailing winds are from west to east, and that every year the proposed plant would put almost 1,000 tons of soot into the air, and that most of the soot will settle to the east of Washington County.

Since Richmond County is about 70 miles east of Washington County it seems to me that the coal-fired power plant is highly likely to increase dirty air in Richmond County. Jefferson County, which joins Washington County to the east, surely will be affected by the pollution from the dirty coal-fired plant -- even to the extent that those landowners who follow good forest-management practices and prescribe burn their lands for timber and wildlife production will not be permitted to burn, or their burning will be constrained because of the increased air pollution from Plant Washington's emissions.

More than 90 percent of the electricity generated by the plant will go to metro Atlanta. They can't build the plant near Atlanta because, according to the EPD, the air pollution the plant would emit would endanger the lives of the people living in the metro area.

So hang out the job carrot, build in rural Georgia and pollute our air and fill our rivers and streams with toxic mercury.

Georgia is currently a surplus producer of electricity. We sell electricity to other states. Why not focus on making Georgia a more energy-efficient state and not build more dirty coal-fired power plants that will be polluting our air and water for 40 to 50 years?