The WNC Regional Air Quality Agency will be collecting public comment until May 7. Citizens are invited to weigh in on the renewal of Duke Energy’s air quality permit. Already, the agency has heard from about 250 “environmental advocacy groups, clergy members, concerned citizens, and Asheville City Council members” who believe they are breathing too much sulfur dioxide. Asheville City Council, after about three seconds of public discourse, unanimously authorized Mayor Esther Manheimer to sign a request for a cap of “61.7 lb/hr of SO2 for each coal-burning unit, or a plant-wide average of 0.029 lb/MMBtu.” You can see council’s deliberations with three minutes of commentary from Emma Greenbaum of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal initiative between time markers 3:08:11 and 3:11:16 here.