Ontario joins new source review lawsuit against Cinergy

Ontario joins new source review lawsuit against Cinergy

Washington (Platts)--10May2006

Ontario, saying its air quality is being degraded by emissions from
coal-fired power plants in the Midwest US, has joined the US government's
legal battle against Cinergy -- now a part of Duke Energy -- for alleged
violations of the Clean Air Act's new-source review requirements.

In Washington Wednesday, Ontario's Minister of the Environment Laurel
Broten said the province filed an amicus brief to the NSR lawsuit at the
request of New York Attorney Eliot Spitzer who, along with the attorneys
general of New Jersey and Connecticut, joined the US Environmental Protection
Agency's 1999 suit against the Ohio-based utility.

"I will challenge decisions made in Washington and those issues that
affect the 12 million Ontarians I represent," Broten told reporters at a news
conference.

More than half the air pollution entering Ontario comes from US sources,
including Cinergy's six-coal-fired power plants, according to province's
brief. NSR requires that aging coal-fired plants that undergo renovations
resulting in greater pollution must install pollution control equipment. At
issue is how a plant's emissions are measured.

Last year, a federal district court in Indiana ruled that NSR
requirements apply when an upgraded coal-fired unit's emissions increase on an
annual basis. Cinergy is asking the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit to
reverse that decision and apply an hourly emissions test. A decision on the
case could come out later this summer.

Broten said she has met with officials from the US EPA, the State
Department and Senators Hillary Clinton, Democrat-New York, and Olympia Snowe,
Republican-Maine, to voice concerns about smog in Ontario wrought by Cinergy's
coal fleet. Ontario, which gets 30% of its power from coal-fired generation,
is on track to replace its coal fleet with wind and hydro. The province shut
down one of its five coal plants last year.

Broten said she asked the State Department to join Canadian officials at
a "Shared Air Summit" in Toronto June 26 so both countries can all make
decisions on science that is undisputed on either side. She said she wants a
"common understanding of the science based on the health and economic
consequences and a clear understanding of the trajectory of pollution from the
Midwest to the Canadian provinces."

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