Sep 26 - McClatchy-Tribune Business News Formerly Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Rex Springston Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.

David Hudert's 10-year-old son stayed home from school yesterday because the boy was coughing and sneezing.

Hudert, who lives in Alexandria, blamed his son's sickness on sooty emissions from the old, coal-burning Mirant Corp. power plant near his home.

"It makes me nervous just thinking about it. . . . It's a travesty," Hudert told the state Air Pollution Control Board yesterday at a hearing in Glen Allen.

Another Alexandrian, Richard Moose, said he can breathe better in Los Angeles than in his home city.

"I think about little children and people older than myself," Moose, 75, told the board.

The two were part of a contingent, including legislators and Alexandria officials, who complained to the board about Mirant's 1950s-era plant on the Potomac River in the city.

David Paylor, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said the DEQ is crafting a revised pollution permit for the plant that will better control emissions. The permit should be ready next June.

"There's hope down the line," Paylor said in an interview. DEQ officials serve as staff to the air board.

The board, which delegates much of its authority to the DEQ, voted to keep close tabs on the Mirant case.

"This is a huge issue," said board member Hullihen W. Moore of Richmond, a former State Corporation Commission judge.

August Wallmeyer, an energy consultant representing Mirant, told the board the company would like to make a presentation at another time.

Debra Raggio Bolton, a Mirant vice president, said in an interview that the company is breaking no laws. "We believe we are in environmental compliance."

Alexandrians complained of soot on windows and in air filters. One man showed the board a electric fan that he said was blackened with Mirant's soot.

Bolton said much of the Alexandria soot could have come from typical urban polluters such as diesel trucks.

In summer 2005, DEQ officials said computer simulations showed that Mirant could at times release unsafe levels of sooty particles and other pollutants. The DEQ ordered the plant to cut emissions.

Mirant temporarily closed the plant. But in December, the U.S. Energy Department ordered the plant to reopen because it is an important backup power supply for Washington.

The Energy Department also ordered Mirant to explore ways to reduce emissions. Mirant, an independent power company based in Atlanta, says it is doing that.

Mirant also says gauges of ambient air do not show that the plant is violating pollution limits.

DEQ and Alexandria officials say planned power-line improvements by another company should make Mirant less important next year as a backup power source. That would allow the state to better control Mirant operations.

Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said any change in Mirant's status would be made next year after those power-line improvements are in place.