Informed Decisions ~ Enhanced Development
Taylor Energy Center
Health Impact Assessment -- Final Report
At-A-Glance Impact Table
Winter 2007
In 2005, Florida’s Taylor County Board of Commissioners advocated for an 800 megawatt coal-fired electric plant to be built four miles south of the County seat, Perry. The Taylor County Development Authority commissioned a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) on the proposed plant. The scope was determined by community stakeholder interviews and surveys and includes (1) risks to health from the plant emissions, specifically, particulate matter, (2) risk to human health from unmitigated carbon dioxide emissions from the plant; and (3) benefits to health from employment from the plant.
Health Impact Assessments do not make comprehensive assessments that ascertain whether a development project is either "good" or "bad" for a community. Rather, an HIA makes recommendations to mitigate the negative and enhance the positive impacts to optimize the population’s health. HIAs offer recommendations for each impact that should lead to improved health outcomes over time. The long-term effects of the Taylor Energy Center can be evaluated using indicators provided in the attached table.
Taylor Energy Center impacts investigated included:
Particulate matter emissions
Ground level ozone (a secondary pollutant from emissions)
Carbon dioxide emissions
Mercury emissions
Income from minimum salary jobs
Income from median salary jobs
Over $100 million in "community contribution" over 40 years
Other factors not associated with the Taylor Energy Center include:
Smoking attributable mortality
Healthy Development Inc.
www.healthydevelopment.us
msimmons@healthydevelopment.us
Phone 850.322.4629