Sep 29 - McClatchy-Tribune Business News Formerly Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Hal Dardick Chicago Tribune

Environmentalists, health advocates and the City of Chicago scored a victory this week when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency overturned a state permit for a coal-fired power plant in Will County.

The federal agency's Environmental Appeals Board late Wednesday issued a 122-page order that sent the plant permit back to the Illinois EPA.

As a result, the 660-megawatt plant could only be built if the state agency undertakes a new permit process, complete with public comment, to address details federal officials said it failed to properly review, said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's Midwest Clean Energy Campaign.

Nilles called the decision "a huge victory for clean air."

The state EPA in October 2003 issued a permit for the plant that Buffalo Grove-based Indeck Energy Services Inc. proposed to build in Elwood.

Since 2003, federal air quality standards have become stricter, Nilles noted.

Jill Watson, a spokesman for the state EPA, said her agency was still reviewing the decision.

Jim Thompson, a senior vice president at Indeck, said the response to the federal rejection "is up to the Illinois EPA." He referred all questions to that agency.

The permit was appealed by the Sierra Club, the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago and other groups. Chicago, in a "friend-of--the-court" filing, said the plant would use outdated technology and create far too much air pollution.

"We thought that putting a conventional coal plant in the middle of an urban area that doesn't meet air quality standards was a bad idea," said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs for the American Lung Association.

"It only makes a bad situation worse," Urbaszewski said.

The Environmental Appeals Board concluded the permit was deficient in four areas, including how emissions would be controlled and how the agency evaluated the impact on the nearby Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.

Verena Owen, chair of the Sierra Club's Clean Air Campaign in Illinois, said the decision "presents a great opportunity for Illinois to abandon its current plans to subsidize the construction of outdated coal plants."

Instead, the state should "move towards a clean-energy future that harnesses safe and affordable energy options, including new wind farms and large investments in energy efficiency," Owen said.

 

 

hdardick@tribune.com