SALEM — Demonstrators held signs and cheered as speakers challenged Salem Harbor Station.
About 30 people gathered at the corner of Derby Street and Fort Avenue at noon yesterday, across from the power plant entrance, for a protest titled "Stop coal! Save our future!" organized by HealthLink, a North Shore environmental group.
Speakers stood atop a small wooden platform and used a microphone attached to a bullhorn as they called for more regulations and a state and federal switch to renewable energy.
"The only thing that works is regulations on plants like Salem," said Lynn Nadeau of Marblehead, one of a half-dozen people who addressed the crowd. She linked coal power to pollution and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, and said a statewide activist group is calling for a "shift to 100 percent renewable energy in the next 10 years."
Yesterday's protest coincided with demonstrations at power plants in Holyoke and Somerset, as part of a national push to switch from fossil fuels to clean energy.
The Rev. Jeffrey Barz-Snell, minister of The First Church in Salem, warned that climate change is imminent. He said the scientific support it is there, "and yet no one is paying attention, and this is outrageous."
"We have literally 10 years," said Barz-Snell. "A 10-year window in which we have to do something. It starts with shutting down these antiquated, pulverized coal plants."
Protesters, who included a handful of children, bundled against the snow, whipping wind, and below-freezing temperatures during the 45-minute demonstration.
Salem State professor Avi Chomsky, daughter of activist and linguist Noam Chomsky, framed Salem Harbor Station in an international perspective. Dominion gets low-sulfur coal from Colombia, she told the crowd, which causes environmental degradation and displacement of indigenous people there, which she has witnessed firsthand.
"(Their) land, air, and water is destroyed by the mining of coal," said Chomsky, of Salem. "We have a responsibility to the people whose lives we're destroying."
Nadeau encouraged people to join HealthLink and touted programs and services to weatherize buildings and use energy more efficiently, such as optimal clothesline placement to minimize the use of clothes dryers.
Melanie Hiris of Manchester attended the protest and delivered an on-the-spot plea for more regulations. She told the crowd that she moved to the North Shore from New York nine years ago and instantly developed breathing problems.
"We can feel the effects in Manchester, which is pretty bad," said Hiris. "You can't just not regulate things. It hurts all of us in the end."
A spokesman for Dominion Energy, which owns Salem Harbor Station, said the plant complies with all federal and state emission regulations.
"We are decreasing our emissions at Salem Harbor Station," said Jim Norvelle, a company spokesman, who was not at the protest, "and we are operating in compliance with the (state) law, and it is one of the toughest laws in the country."
About two-thirds of the way through the event, the crowd paused and huddled together to smile for a group photo. During the demonstration, a few motorists passed by and honked their horns.
Some demonstrators anchored signs under the windshield wipers of their parked cars, like a poster that read "Don't let Dominion buy your opinion" accented with dollar-signs, which fluttered from the rear windshield of a Toyota minivan adorned with HealthLink bumper stickers.
"(The power plant employees) are just trying to make a living," said Barz-Snell. "Don't just hold up a sign; go talk to these guys... One of the biggest things we have to change is this economic force of gravity."
Staff writer Tom Dalton contributed to this report.
