Science deniers in Washington may be willing to trade their planet’s future for momentary profit, but momentum toward cleaner ways carries on despite this shameful bit of Presidential posturing.

Fitting that the very week President Trump announced he will pull the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, the coal fires were doused for the final time at Brayton Point Power Station, once the worst polluter of air in New England. The 500,000 ton heap of coal, shipped in regularly by the coal ship Energy Independence, is gone.

For decades the stacks there belched a yellow pall over the these towns — a northwest wind carried it over South Coast Massachusetts, easterly breezes blew it to the East Bay. Some days it left a fine coat of ash on cars and windows. Hundreds of millions spent on mandated smoke scrubbers had some effect but didn’t remove all of the toxins from the mix.

The closing has provoked small but predictable backlash — blame environmentalists, some have said, for the loss of these jobs, for higher electric bills to come.

But the power plant’s owners say the “irreversible” closing was unrelated to protestors. Rather is was the fiscal bottom line that doomed the plant. Lowering costs of competition from natural gas, low electricity prices, and the upkeep costs of the half-century-plus old facility were cited.

In an especially pleasant irony, the day the closing was announced a pair of research ships hired by one of the world’s biggest wind energy producers were charting Sakonnet waters for a cable that might someday carry electricity from a major wind farm off Martha’s Vineyard, up the Sakonnet River and Mount Hope Bay to Brayton Point. There that power could join the grid via lines already in place. As Europe has learned and we are figuring out, clean energy is now where the real job potential lies.

One bit of unfinished business for Brayton Point’s owners — those twin towering eyesores must go.

Somerset and towns all around should insist that demolition of those towers commence immediately. It would seem an obvious step but it's a costly one that owners may feel little urgency to tackle.

The 'nuclear' towers diminish the look and feel of this beautiful waterway, provide a ghastly first impression to visitors, harm the area's ability to lure more attractive ventures, and diminish the value of investments already made.

People here deserve to get their view back.