Report: State Rarely Enforces Pollution Laws For Dirtiest Plants

POSTED: 9:33 am EDT May 29, 2006

BALTIMORE -- The Maryland Department of the Environment is failing to punish the state's seven dirtiest power plants for thousands of air pollution violations, a newspaper has found.

The (Baltimore) Sun examined emissions reports for the state's seven oldest coal-fired power plants. In a story in Sunday's editions, The Sun reported that the plants were barely penalized for frequent violations during the last three years of former governor Parris Glendening's administration. Under Glendening, a Democrat, the plants were fined a total of $350,000 between January 2000 and December 2002, state records show.

And during Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich's first three years in office, the plants were not penalized at all - even though four of them were spewing more pollution from 2003-05 than they did from 2000-02.

"Weak enforcement has gotten weaker under Governor Ehrlich," said Eric Schaeffer, a former federal Environmental Protection Agency official who is now an environmental activist. "These power companies are breaking the law, and they really should pay because they make a lot of money."

Tad Aburn, director of the MDE's air division, said in a written statement that his agency is doing more than ever to clean up the air but "strives to achieve a fair and balanced enforcement approach."

"Not every exceedence or violation warrants an enforcement action," Aburn wrote. "It is not unusual for the number of violations, enforcement actions, etc. to fluctuate year to year."

Maryland has also failed to issue stronger new permits for two of the state's worst polluters. A 1990 federal law required the new permits - intended to hold company executives more accountable for reducing pollution - by 1999.

The Chalk Point power plant in southern Prince George's County and the Dickerson plant in western Montgomery County continue to operate without these permits, state and federal officials said.

Chalk Point, Dickerson and the Morgantown plant in Charles County were identified last year as being among the worst polluters in the nation by the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington-based nonprofit.

"Unfortunately, Maryland lags behind ... in implementing this important air pollution control program," said U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who sponsored the law. "Maryland residents and its environment are likely to suffer from higher pollution as a result."

Aburn said "complex technical issues involved" in the permits led in part to the seven-year delay.

The seven plants examined by The Sun have the capacity to generate about 60 percent of the electricity produced in Maryland. Because they were built before the 1970 Clean Air Act required the best available equipment on all new power plants, they lack modern pollution-control devices such as soot filters and sulfur-reduction systems called scrubbers.

Three of the plants are owned by Constellation Energy, parent company of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. Atlanta-based Mirant power company operates three other plants, and one is owned by Pennsylvania-based Allegheny Energy. The three companies have contributed at least $670,000 to state and federal politicians of both parties over the past five years, state records show.

The seven plants released 1,031,833 tons of air pollution from 2003 through 2005 - 32,785 tons more than in the period from 2000 through 2002, according to emission statements filed with the state.

Ehrlich this year signed a bill known as the Healthy Air Act, which requires the seven plants to reduce their pollution by more than two-thirds by 2020 but gives the MDE a great deal of discretion in enforcement.

Currently, the MDE inspects the plants once a year. But it also requires the plants to police themselves by conducting tests and maintaining monitors inside their smokestacks that continuously measure pollution levels.

The companies send quarterly reports to the MDE that detail their compliance with the legal limits. The MDE is supposed to notify the federal EPA when plants are in serious violation.

The Sun reported that the plants routinely own up to violations of pollution limits, but the state seldom takes action.

For example, reports from Mirant to the state show more than 8,000 violations of state air pollution standards since Jan. 1, 2003, at the Chalk Point plant. The state has not imposed any penalties or written any notices for these violations, records show.

Many of these individual violations are not a high priority for enforcement, according to the written policies of federal and state environmental agencies. But these violations are supposed to trigger enforcement action when they happen too often - and they have, according to both state and federal policy.

In the MDE's written statement to The Sun, Aburn said it can be misleading to compare emissions with enforcement actions, partly because power plants often release more pollution in years when demand for electricity is higher.

The department did not dispute figures showing increased air pollution from the seven plants, but Aburn said overall air quality in Maryland has improved "every year" under Ehrlich.