May 12--The nation's dirtiest electrical power plants -- including eight in Kentucky -- generate about 14 percent of the total electrical output from large U.S. electrical plants, but produce a disproportionately large share of major pollutants, an environmental group said yesterday.

The Washington-based Environmental Integrity Project evaluated the nation's 359 largest power plants (those generating 2 megawatts or more) based on emissions of four pollutants: sulfur dioxide, mercury, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide. Plants then were ranked by the total amounts of the pollutants they produced, and by their rates of emissions per megawatt hour of electricity generated.

The 50 dirtiest plants accounted for up to 50 percent of all sulfur dioxide emissions from large electrical plants, 42 percent of mercury emissions, 40 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions, and 35 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the report Dirty Kilowatts -- America's Most Polluting Power Plants.

The findings are based on the most current data available from the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal sources, the report said.

"You might say the power industry has a dirty secret," Ilan Levin, counsel for the Environmental Integrity Project, said in a phone conference from Washington. "What's really most outrageous... is that most of the health and environmental costs ... coming out of these plants are avoidable. Modern pollution controls are available and affordable, and are being used today at many plants to significantly reduce these emissions."

One Kentucky plant -- Louisville Gas & Electric's K.C. Coleman Station in Hancock County -- ranked second in the nation in sulfur dioxide emissions per megawatt hour, producing 40.94 pounds of sulfur dioxide for each megawatt hour of electricity it generated.

Most of the Kentucky plants listed are in the western part of the state. One exception is East Kentucky Power Cooperative's John Sherman Cooper Power Station near Somerset. It had the nation's 11th- highest sulfur dioxide emission rate, according to the report.

East Kentucky Power spokesman Kevin Osbourn countered yesterday that the cooperative has spent "millions of dollars on environmental control equipment at Cooper Station, and to buy coal that produces lower sulfur dioxide emissions." East Kentucky also has spent $200 million on emission controls at its Spurlock Station plant in Maysville, is developing plans for two new low-emission coal-fired plants, and is exploring wind power, Osbourn said.

He said East Kentucky Power is in compliance with government emission regulations.

"We take great pride that as a not-for-profit cooperative we've made a strong commitment to environmental stewardship," he said. "Ironically, the EPA released a report last fall that said U.S. air quality is the cleanest it has been since 1970."

The Environmental Integrity Project is a non-profit organization that supports stronger enforcement of state and federal anti- pollution laws.

It produced the report to increase public awareness and to encourage companies to do more to reduce polluted emissions.

According to the project's report, the 50 dirtiest power plants released an average of 22.8 pounds of sulfur dioxide for each megawatt hour of electricity they generated, compared to an average of 8.3 pounds per megawatt hour for all 359 largest power plants. Plants equipped with state-of-the-art pollution control equipment averaged less than a pound per megawatt hour, the report said.

Pennsylvania and Ohio had the heaviest concentration of dirty power plants -- each state had nine leaders in sulfur dioxide emission rate. Kentucky had three in that category.

The Tennessee Valley Authority's Paradise Fossil Plant in Muhlenberg County -- the subject of a famous folk song -- was Kentucky's worst offender. According to the report, it ranked among the 50 dirtiest in total sulfur dioxide emissions, total carbon dioxide emissions, total nitrogen oxide emissions, nitrogen oxide emission rate and total mercury emissions.

Because power plants were ranked in two different ways for four different pollutants, some individual plants appear several times on the list.

Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides help make up fine-particle air pollution. According to some studies, they can aggravate cardiovascular and respiratory problems, such as asthma, in people downwind from power plants.

Mercury is a toxic chemical that settles out of the air into lakes and streams, where it is consumed by fish and can then move up the food chain into humans.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that, many scientists think, is a main culprit in global warming.

Herald-Leader news researcher Linda Smith-Niemi contributed to this story.

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