Power plants, highways, and other pollution sources in Connecticut disproportionately impact the health of Black and brown communities and low-income communities in our state. Here in Hartford, polluting energy facilities and two highways are key drivers of air pollution that make people sick. Hartford has been named one of the most challenging places to live with asthma in the entire US by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation.
Data Haven’s 2021 Community Wellbeing Survey found higher asthma rates in Hartford than the statewide average. City residents are also three to four times more likely to visit the emergency room with an asthma diagnosis than residents of outer suburban areas.
This truth makes it all the more important that the State of Connecticut seize an unmissable opportunity to rectify the historic harm caused by one of our city’s highest polluting sources, the Capitol Area System. Located on Capitol Avenue and adjacent to I-84, the Capitol Area System is sited in the center of this Environmental Justice community. The facility is highly recognizable with its tall smokestack and three large cooling towers. It began operating in 1988 as a fossil fuel-fired cogeneration power plant and was for years the third largest stationary source polluter in the city of Hartford. It no longer provides power for the grid, but continues to operate to heat and cool 16 state and private buildings. In 2022, the State of Connecticut purchased the aging Capitol Area System. The facility now requires extensive repair in order to continue serving buildings along its two mile heating and cooling loop.
Recently, the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) provided an update on the Capitol Area System’s future. Currently, DAS is conducting a decarbonization study of the Capitol Area System that will provide data on nine different technologies, capital costs, operational costs, incentives. The results of the report are expected to be released in June and a decision on the plant’s future will be made soon after.
Gov. Ned Lamont must ensure Connecticut leads by example and adopts a 100% clean and renewable update for the Capitol Area System. This would make good on his environmental justice commitments and his own Executive Order 21-3 which directs his agencies to plan for heating and cooling in state buildings operated without carbon emitting fuels and to achieve zero-greenhouse gas emissions for all new construction and major renovations funded by the state.
For the Hartford community, exposure to pollution from the Capitol Area System and other fossil fuel combustion, has been a long term environmental injustice that must be healed. The toxic air pollutants spewed into the majority Black and brown and low-income community by the Capitol Area System since it began operating includes carbon dioxide (CO2), and health harming nitrogen oxide (NOX) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). Governor Lamont must choose a 100% clean and renewable system, not more harmful fossil fuels.
A 100% clean and renewable replacement can also develop a local workforce in the green energy sector. By training and hiring Hartford residents for renewable energy projects, career pathways can be developed for a community that has experienced a lack of job opportunities and the resulting housing, food and other insecurities that come with unemployment and underemployment. As the Capitol Area System is updated, the state has a real opportunity to uplift Hartford residents with job training and career pathways in the green energy sector. Having a workforce for green energy high paying jobs will combat housing insecurity and food insecurity for residents.
Hartford residents deserve a 100% clean and renewable Capitol Area System and job opportunities in the green economy, and we’re counting on Governor Lamont to ensure that it happens.
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