Along the Ohio River valley, coal is an air pollution source that’s raised residential health concerns for decades. In Evansville, Indiana, energy production fuels its economy through coal mining and coal fueled power plants. Coal is a key regional economic driver in southern Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. Until recent closures, there was over 15,000 Megawatts of coal electric generation within 60 miles of Evansville.

While more coal power plants are scheduled to shut down, continuing operations and a proposed coal-to-diesel venture keep local air quality health activists worried. Concerned citizens are turning to air quality monitoring as part of the solution.

The 2,600-megawatt Rockport Power plant on a clear day. Source: BlairPhotoEVV

Tracking Evansville air quality

Ohio Valley Safe Air (OVSA) is a partnership between Valley Watch and Southwestern Indiana Citizens for Quality of Life (SWICQL) to monitor regional air quality.

Valley Watch, based in Evansville, was founded in 1981 to help protect and inform the lower Ohio Valley about regional pollution (1). Founder and President John Blair noted that the group “has had to be the main and often only obstacle that polluters have to face in this region over the last five decades.”

SWICQL, made up of citizens living in and around the small town of Dale, grew out of opposition to a planned coal-to-diesel plant to be built inside the town limits. Through SWICQL’s and Valley Watch’s persistence along with representation by Earthjustice, the permit for the plant was voided in 2023 (2).

The OVSA operates 25 IQAir AirVisual air quality monitoring stations across southern Indiana. Monitors were placed in communities either with coal burning power plants such as Grandview and Newburgh, or in communities downwind from pollutants, like Evansville, Hanover, and Jasper. Through air quality monitoring, activists keep a close eye on fine particle pollution, or PM2.5 (particulate matter measuring 2.5 microns in diameter or less).

The Rockport Power plant on a polluted day. Source: BlairPhotoEVV

In several cities where OVSA operated air quality monitoring stations during 2023, annual average PM2.5 concentrations exceeded the World Health Organization’s guideline by 2 to 3 times, due in part to Canadian wildfire smoke (3). While air quality did improve in those cities in 2024, only two cities in Indiana met the WHO guideline for air quality. Both cities lie near Indianapolis and are not in the Ohio Valley region.

List of most polluted cities in the US on March 12, 2024; Evansville was the fourth most polluted city that day, while another Indiana city, Indianapolis, was the tenth. Source: IQAir.

PM2.5, closely linked to wildfire smoke and burning coal, has been directly linked to coughing, difficulty breathing, asthma, and heart and lung disease.

Abbie Brockman, an educator and Valley Watch board member, has assumed much of the responsibility for the group’s air quality monitoring program. Like most members, she has concerns about how PM2.5 exposure may be impacting children’s physical health and childhood neurodevelopment. Pollution has been linked to childhood neurodevelopment (4).

“There's a lot of kids that have asthma.”

Those concerns are justified. In recent years, the Ohio Valley was identified as one of the United States’ two “asthma belts” by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (5). The organization cited air pollution as one of several key risk factors.

While the OVSA stated that coal power plant pollution is the most significant source of local air pollution, Blair and Brockman noted several additional sources of regional air pollution. These can include pollutants from mines, VOC off-gassing from furniture production, metal smelters, raw plastics manufacturing and extrusion, turkey farm manure, and controlled burns and wildfire smoke from as far away as the West Coast.

The Ohio Valley is prone to multiple temperature inversions, when air becomes static, and a buildup of air pollution is less likely to disperse.

Building partnerships and developing outreach for air quality awareness

The group has more monitors to place and is working to overcome several installation hurdles. These include access to electricity and Wi-Fi, in addition to assuaging misgivings by property owners.

To bring much needed attention to air quality issues, SWICQL members Mary Hess, Rock Emmert, Jessica Blazier, and Dr. Norma Kreilein, a board-certified pediatrician from the area, presented at the 2024 American Public Health Association Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There, they addressed the role of clinicians in collaborating with marginalized communities in identifying exposure to toxins, mitigating risk and health outcomes, and fostering a safer environment in those communities in sacrifice zones.  

Outreach efforts continue for the groups, as they apply for grants to help distribute surveys on public health in the area and talk about their advocacy on radio stations and national public health podcasts. They spoke most recently on the American Indian and Alaska Native Living podcast, “Dr. DeRose Explores Sacrifice Zones.”

There are state government air quality monitors in Indiana run by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), including a monitor in Evansville. However, Blair expressed distrust in the state government’s commitment to environmental pollution.

“IDEM has a bad culture of thinking of itself as an economic development agency instead of environmental protection.” Blair asserted. “They don’t want to accept the data from the monitors.”

Valley Watch has observed that government air quality monitors seem to “fail” on poor air quality days – exactly when access to air quality data can help inform the public. When many poor readings aren’t factored into calculating AQI averages, the published data can be skewed and makes an area’s air quality look better than it is. By contrast, low-cost air quality monitoring stations owned by individuals and activists maintain access throughout the year and provide more complete, validated data accessible by anyone via an app.

Coal-to-liquid (CTL) controversy

In one significant development for community health, a proposed coal-to-diesel plant in Dale lost its construction and operations permit in 2023 (6).

“The refinery is no longer an issue, thanks to John, Valley Watch, Southwestern Indiana Citizens for Quality of Life, and Earthjustice,” said Mary Hess, the President of SWICQL.

There have been at least ten proposed projects to build a coal-to-liquid (CTL) plant in the area. Coal liquefaction, the process of converting coal into a liquid hydrocarbon used for fuel, is marketed as “clean coal” or “clean diesel” when liquefaction creates diesel. But the process isn’t as clean as advertised.

The coal-to-diesel conversion process releases carbon into the atmosphere, a greenhouse gas. The liquefaction process is energy intensive and furthers dependency on coal mining (7,8).

There are currently no coal-to-diesel plants in the United States. Despite the fact no such project has gone ahead elsewhere, the community is conflicted over the project.

A region divided

Valley Watch has succeeded in opposing all previously proposed area “synfuel” facilities which would convert coal to liquids, gases, and other burnable solids. That doesn’t mean proposals will never be submitted again, though.

A billboard opposing a proposed coal to diesel refinery in Dale, Indiana. Source: BlairPhotoEVV. Billboard designed by Matt Brockman.

There are misconceptions in the community over other sources of air pollution as well – especially given the widespread myth that country air is always cleaner than city air. Air quality in rural Dubois County can be poor in part due to the practice of spreading manure and animal by-products in fields.

“Some days, it’s so foul you can barely breathe,” Brockman noted.

When poor air quality from wildfires, preventative burns, VOC releases from numerous furniture factories, and coal burning converge in the valley, there can be days when the resulting poor air quality harms residents’ respiratory health – and that too can impact quality of life. As Hess recalled, a real estate agent looking at properties in the valley found that out first-hand as he drove and approached the Dale exit, his eyes began watering.

“The closer he got while driving down 231, the worse it got,” she attested.

While Dale and the greater community may be divided on the issues, Valley Watch and SWICQL believe that providing validated, calibrated air quality data to the community will help better inform views and combat air pollution.

The takeaway

Southern Indiana continues to have an air quality problem. But at least light has been shed on the problem thanks to the dedicated efforts of activist groups like Valley Watch and SWICQL.

Air quality monitoring creates data that can inform decision-makers and change lives. When people are empowered through data-driven information, this is how communities can take back their health and tackle air pollution at its source.