"New NAACP analysis pinpoints the disproportionate impact from coal-fired power plants on minorities and the poor."

"Coal plants place a disproportionate burden on poor and largely minority communities, exposing residents to high levels of pollutants that affect public health, according to a new report led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The report ranks all 378 coal-fired power plants in the United States according to a plant's impact on the health, economics and environment of nearby communities. People living near coal plants are disproportionately poor and minorities, the report found; the six million people living within three miles of those 378 plants have an average per capita income of $18,400 per year; 39 percent are people of color.

'The message arising from this report is simple: These polluting, life-compromising coal plants must be closed,' the NAACP concluded in its report, Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People."

Brett Israel reports for The Daily Climate November 16, 2012. [2]