For many years Northampton Generating Company has been polluting the air surrounding the plant in Northampton, and cities downwind such as Bath, Nazareth, and Easton. The plant's blatant disregard for the rules has been exposed by the fines it incurred in 2013, after the Department of Environmental Protection determined it exceeded carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide emission limits five times between 2009 and 2012 and further submitted erroneous data on a daily basis for three months in 2012.

Now the company wants to raise the amount of lead it pollutes into the air by 21 times the current rate! Worse, the state and DEP are about to approve this increase. Emission of lead has been linked to cancer, autism, and many other diseases and has been proven harmful for years.

Our children deserve better. Our neighborhoods deserve better. We deserve better. A beautiful child in my family, Ava Rose, who lives less than one mile from the pollution has just been diagnosed with autism. While canvassing my neighborhood for signatures, I met two other families with children suffering from autism. When is someone going to wake up and stop this company from polluting the air where our families are trying to live and raise healthy children? When will someone help us?

Northampton Area High School and Junior High are about one mile from the plant. Along with the schools are playgrounds and football, track, and other sports fields. Why does the plant believe raising emissions won't hurt our children? Is the tax money profiting the township and borough and emissions fines profiting the DEP worth our children's health?

How would the managers and owners of the generating plant feel if their homes were showered with toxic waste or their children had neurological impairment as a result of these toxins as our children do.

Please sign this petition to let Northampton Generating Company, the state of Pennsylvania, and the Department of Environmental Protection know that we will take this no longer. Let them know that increasing the emissions of chemicals will not be tolerated.

Also, please contact Raymond Kempa, PE, Environmental Group Manager, Air Quality Program, 2 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701 or call 570-826-2511. Ask for a public hearing to get all of the facts and learn how toxic the air really is that we are all breathing.