Become a Member! (click here) MCAQAP Results: What Pembroke and Allenstown Residents Say Residents of Pembroke and Allenstown, as part of the Merrimack County Air Quality Awareness Project (MCAQAP), surveyed more than 200 friends and neighbors about air quality. Survey results indicate that many citizens living downwind from the coal-burning power plant in Bow are concerned that the air they breathe is not as clean as the air elsewhere in the state. "We see the plume from the plant almost every day," said Donna Richardson, a mother and resident of Pembroke, "as well as black soot blanketing our decks, pools, cars and houses. If this is what we see visually, imagine what we are breathing." MCAQAP collected and tabulated 204 surveys from May through August 2000. Survey results included: When asked if you or any of your friends and neighbors have expressed concern over air quality, 62% said yes. When asked if you sense any evidence of poor air quality in your community, 75% said yes. Examples of such evidence included soot in pools, on cars, on decks and on clothes hanging on a clothesline, film on windows of homes and cars, and trees yellowing and dying. When asked, compared to the rest of the state, would you say air quality in your town is better, worse, the same or don't know, half say it is worse. When asked if you or anyone in your house has been diagnosed with asthma or respiratory disease that requires treatment, 37% responded yes. The majority of these incidents are asthma cases. "As residents living here year after year, we're concerned about the quality of life in our community. The air we breathe is certainly a large piece of that," said Pembroke public health officer Dr. Vincent Greco, elected in 2000 by Pembroke residents to represent them in the NH House of Representatives. "What we found out from talking with our friends and neighbors is that this is not just a concern of an isolated few. Many of us are concerned, and that's why we got involved in this project." Click here for more information about the health and environmental effects of NH's fossil-fuel power plants.