05-12-03 Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant emissions ranked as the
third-dirtiest in the United States in 2001, according to an environmental
study, and Reliant Energy's Keystone power plant in Armstrong County emitted
more mercury than any power plant in the nation. Only North Carolina and Texas
electric utilities emitted more pollution than Pennsylvania utilities in 2001,
according to "Toxic Neighbours," a study of US Environmental
Protection Agency data released by the Clean Air Council.
Only Texas and Ohio utilities emitted more mercury than the 7,427 pounds
released by Pennsylvania utilities in 2001. Nationwide, power plants released
more than 91,000 pounds of mercury, a dangerous neurotoxin that can cause brain
damage and harm reproduction in women and wildlife.
"Pennsylvania families should be angry that they are being exposed to
dangerous levels of mercury, a toxic chemical that can cause serious
developmental problems in children," said Arthur Stamoulis of the Clean Air
Council, which released the study in Pittsburgh and nationwide.
The Keystone power plant, in Shelocta, released 1,800 pounds of mercury in
2001. Other coal-burning power plants in Pennsylvania that ranked high for
mercury emissions were First Energy's Bruce Mansfield plant (11th) in
Shippingport, Beaver County; Allegheny Energy's Hatfield's Ferry power station
(27th) in Greene County; Reliant Energy's Shawville station (32nd) in Clearfield
County and its Conemaugh generating station (42nd) in Indiana County.
The study, which analyses the quantity and nature of toxic pollution from the
nation's 400 power plants, was released as the Bush administration announced
some specifics of its Clear Skies legislation, including smog and ozone
transport rules and a new rule that would delay and weaken implementation of
Clean Air Act requirements to regulate mercury emissions from power plants.
Utilities are currently the only unregulated industrial emitters of mercury.
According to the EPA, the administration's mercury controlproposal would
scrap across-the-board controls on utilities in favour of a cap-and-trade system
that would allow utilities to reduce mercury emissions from some plants but not
others. The program would aim to cut mercury emissions by 30 % by 2010 and 70 %
by 2018. The program is a change from one proposed by Bush's first EPA
administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, in December 2001, which the agency said
would have reduced mercury emissions by 90 % by 2008 using currently available
technologies.
A host of environmental groups and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean
have criticized the administration's plan because it would delay implementation
of mercury controls and could allow some utilities to avoid making any
reductions at all at some older, coal-burning power plants, creating "hot
spots" of mercury contamination.
The EPA's own draft proposal recognized that the cap-and-trade program might
not reduce the adverse health effects of mercury emissions because "any
particular utility may opt to purchase allowances instead of implementing
controls" and those continued high emissions "may have adverse health
impacts within the local area."
"This possible retreat from technologically achievable and meaningful
mercury standards leaves our citizens among the biggest losers," said Sue
Seppi, director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution. "This action is
yet another in a dismal series of EPA decisions that effectively slow if not
reverse clean air progress."
Richard Wheatley, a Reliant Energy spokesman, said the company's power plants
are operating according to current state and federal regulations and would meet
the administration's mercury mandates.
"The cap-and-trade proposal is a more effective use of our money than
retrofitting our plants with emissions controls," Wheatley said. He said it
is too early to say if the Keystone facility would be one that would reduce
mercury emissions if the Bush proposal is finalized.
Chris Kimmel, 60, a farmer who owns 1,600 acres around the Keystone power
plant and was rushing to get in a last load of corn, said he isn't concerned
about the mercury emitted by the power plant, which started operations in 1967.
He grows corn, soy, wheat and barley and runs beef cattle. He's never had his
soil tested for mercury. Nationwide, coal-fired power plants -- especially older
plants operating with out-of-date or no pollution controls -- are the largest
industrial source of soot and smog-forming air pollution, toxic mercury and
carbon dioxide, thought to be a leading cause of global warming.
Mercury emitted from power plants falls to the ground and is washed or falls
into rivers and lakes, where it accumulates in the bodies of fish and other
aquatic animals. Human exposure occurs primarily through eating contaminated
fish. Mercury has contaminated 10.2 mm acres of lakes, estuaries and wetlands
and 415,000 miles of streams, rivers and coastline. That has resulted in
advisories against eating fish caught in contaminated water bodies in 45 states,
including a general advisory not to eat more than one meal a week of fish caught
in Pennsylvania streams, rivers or lakes.
Eating mercury-contaminated fish damages the brains and nervous systems of
children and can harm cardiovascular and immune systems in adults. Studies show
one in 12 women of child-bearing age in the United States has mercury levels in
her blood above what is considered safe for the developing foetus. That
translates to more than 320,000 babies born every year who may be at risk of
neurological problems due to mercury exposure.
Source: Knight Ridder Tribune Business News