Group Says Power Plants Will Double State's Mercury Emissions

Oct 13 - Missoulian

Big Sky coal is contributing to a national mercury pollution problem and the power plants that burn it should be under tougher regulation, a University of Montana-based activist group said Thursday.

Montana Public Interest Research Group executive director Matt Leow said Montana was a particular concern because of proposed power plants that could double the state's mercury emissions to more than 2,000 pounds a year.

MontPIRG released a study Thursday calling on Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency to hold power plants to strict, technology-based mercury reduction standards.

The electricity industry supports an EPA move to take power plants out of the tougher pollution -control category, according to Pennsylvania Power and Light Corp. spokeswoman Constance Walker. She said power plants produce relatively small amounts of environmental mercury and the technology to eliminate it is still years away.

On the other hand, EPA's own studies have shown that available mercury reduction technology is very effective in reversing the growth of mercury pollution, Leow said. The problem is that EPA has drafted a new rule allowing power plants to avoid federal Clean Air Act "maximum achievable control technology" requirements in favor of a different standard known as "cap-and-trade." That effectively puts off industry improvements in mercury reduction until 2018, he said.

"EPA is essentially saying, that mercury from power plants isn't toxic," Leow said. "That not only defies law and logic, but it's outrageous."

Missoula's City-County Air Pollution Control Board has petitioned EPA to move for stricter standards than the capand-trade system. In an April 2004 letter to EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt, board Chairman Bill Rossbach noted that Montana currently has 25 mercury health advisories on 321,858 acres of lakes and reservoirs and 34 miles of rivers, including one in Missoula County.

"We don't have as big a problem in western Montana as other places," said Ben Schmidt, of the Missoula City-County Health Department. "But we're part of the country, and there's nothing that says we won't necessarily ever leave the county boundaries and visit Wisconsin or Ohio, where the levels are higher."

In addition, western Montana does have some mercury issues that are hard to explain, Schmidt said. For example, Seeley Lake is under a state advisory for fish consumption because of high levels of mercury there, even though there is no history of mine tailings or coal burning in the area. The advisory says adults should eat no more than two meals of Seeley Lake fish a week to avoid mercury contamination, he said.

According to EPA Toxics Release Inventory figures compiled by the MontPIRG Education Fund, Montana ranked 27th among states for reported mercury air emissions. It produced 986 pounds of mercury in 2003, 92 percent of which came from state power plants. Nearly all of that, 873 pounds, came from Rosebud County and the Colstrip power plants there. In a nationwide county ranking, Rosebud placed 23rd. The No. 1 county for mercury emissions was Armstrong County, Pa., with 1,527 pounds, while No. 10 was Mercer County, N.D., with 1,086 pounds.

Pennsylvania Power and Light Corp., which manages the Colstrip plants, ranked 17th in the nation for mercury emissions by, company, according to the EPA figures. Walker said Thursday that the Colstrip plant was the second largest of its kind west of the Mississippi River, capable of producing about 2,000 megawatts of electricity.

"To put power plant reductions into perspective, the aggregate emissions of all U.S. power plants only produce 1 percent of the world's mercury emissions," Walker said. "Natural resources like geysers, volcanoes and forest fires are responsible for 55 percent of mercury emissions worldwide."

Walker said PPL favored the cap-and-trade system because it gave industries incentive to pursue cleanup technology beyond any arbitrarily set regulations.

"We believe cal-and-trade has worked for other air pollutants," Walker said. "The 1990 Clean Air Act has been extraordinarily successful for sulfur dioxide pollution. We got more reductions than required, sooner than required, without litigation. We believe a similar approach for mercury is the longterm solution for this issue."

Leow pointed out that 16 states (not including Montana) have legally challenged the capand-trade system or petitioned the EPA to use the technologybased standard. In addition, the Senate may vote next week whether to block EPA from reclassifying power plants into the cap-and-trade category.

Walker claimed there is no suitable technology that's available and affordable for power plant mercury reduction now. Leow's report disagreed, citing studies by the EPA and Congressional Research Service that showed filters achieving 72 to 90 percent reductions in mercury emissions had been successfully tested on coal-fired power plants.

"There is no basis for affording them special treatment," Leow said. "It's long past time for power plants to comply with the law and join other industries in reducing their mercury pollution by 90 percent."