Back in April we told you about the local group CoolMom setting up a temporary “wind farm” of pinwheels at Green Lake, in celebration of Earth Day.
Now, Greenwood and Phinney members of CoolMom have taken bouquets of those pinwheels to state legislators, calling for an end to coal-based energy in Washington.
Phinney residents Maris Sovold and Brooke Doyle and their children recently took pinwheel bouquets to Rep. Scott White, Rep. Phyllis Kenny and Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson to ask them to enact legislation to close the TransAlta coal plant in Centralia by 2015.
Sovold said that she participated because she is concerned about the impact of burning coal on her children’s health, since studies have linked it to mercury poisoning and asthma. She also had heard that closing the plant would be equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the road, which sounds like a concrete way to help reduce Washington’s carbon footprint.
Kari Boiter, legislative assistant to Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, receives a pinwheel from Nolan and Annika Sovold.