By Matthew Hirsch

In this, the age of disinformation and spin, pollution is only pollution if you say it is. Call it something else, the federal Clear Skies Initiative of 2003, for example, and even George W. Bush seems kinda green.

That is the art of greenwashing, defined by Disinfopedia (www.disinfopedia.org) as "a form of public relations propaganda which gives something the appearance of being environmentally friendly when it is, in fact, not."

As Disinfopedia points out, greenwashing can be a highly valuable skill for government agencies, corporations, and national nonprofits like the Nature Conservancy. And it was in effect Sept. 8 when the Bay Area Air Quality Management District heralded its decision on the Hunters Point power plant.

The air district granted Pacific Gas and Electric Co. a permit to continue operating the 75-year-old plant, but in its press release distributed by P.R. firm Allison and Partners, it said the air district board "supports [the] community's desire to close [the] PG&E Hunters Point plant."

The problem is, Bayview-Hunters Point residents left no doubt about what the community wanted when air district officials came around to talk about the Hunters Point permit back in May. They wanted to reject it (see "Shutdown Authority," 5/12/04). Instead, the air district left the plant running with new restrictions on equipment and increased monitoring at the facility.

For the record, local environmental group Greenaction issued a response calling the permitting decision a backroom deal.

"It's déjà vu all over gain," Huntersview Tenants Association president Tessie Ester said in a counter-press release. "They're smiling to our face while the power industry stabs us in the back one more time."

Greenaction said it would lodge an appeal with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

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