Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Attorneys general from eight states have signed a letter asking South Carolina environmental officials to deny a permit to build a coal-fired power plant.
The top lawyers said the plant, proposed by Santee Cooper, would release millions of tons of carbon dioxide in the air, hindering efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.
The state-owned electric utility wants to build two 600-megawatt generators along the Little Pee Dee River near Johnsonville. The utility says if the plant isn't built, Santee Cooper will run short of needed power in five years. The facility would provide enough power for 600,000 homes.
Santee Cooper has said the plant will be built with equipment to meet or exceed state and federal standards.
The letter sent to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control earlier this month was signed by attorneys general from California, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont.
"I think it's extraordinary that they have written this letter," said Blan Holman, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center. "It shows the plant doesn't just have significance in the Pee Dee and in South Carolina, but that it's part of a national debate."
The letter was just one of the more than 700 comments DHEC received about the plant. The agency has given no timetable about when it will decide whether to issue a permit.
This isn't the first time the eight attorneys general have worked against a power plant. They wrote a letter to Kansas officials last year, and the permit was denied because of concerns about global warming.
"Those attorneys general letters were very influential in Kansas, and my hope is that they'll be very influential in South Carolina," said Nancy Cave of the Coastal Conservation League. "I hope they won't shrug it off."
