Nov 13 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Tara Bozick Victoria Advocate, Texas

Susan Purcell used to live in a 150-year-old house before the first coal plant came.

A dam for International Power's Coleto Creek coal-fired plant replaced it, the 53-year-old said.

The Victoria County resident doesn't know how much more pollution the area can take. She's concerned about the proposed coal plant expansion to bring the long-ago planned Unit 2 online.

"It's very dirty," she said about coal-fired power plants. "Any given morning right at sunrise, there's this yellow-brown across the sky. Guess where it's coming from."

Purcell and 30 other residents met at the Reeves Ranch in rural Victoria County with environmental groups Public Citizen, Sierra Club and Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition Wednesday night to discuss the health and environmental impacts of doubling the area's coal-fired capacity.

But the new coal-fired plant will be the cleanest coal plant in Texas, International Power Coleto Creek site managers say, adding all options need to be on the table for the state's and country's energy independence.

"We're a good neighbor. We live here," Mike Fields, plant manager, said. "We want to have a good place to live like everyone else and we will behave accordingly and not harm anything in any way and make the community much better."

Unit 2 will include carbon capture technology to remove almost all mercury, scrubbers for the sulfur dioxide and systems to remove the nitrous oxides, Fields said.

The carbon technology is similar to how carbon or charcoal water filters work, he added. A baghouse, which he describes as a large vacuum cleaner, will collect the particulate matter.

Fly ash and bottom ash will be contained and can be recycled to create concrete or road materials, Fields said.

The plant won't need additional water rights and will add millions of dollars to the tax base, he added.

The company even conducted modeling with the city of Victoria to determine how emissions would affect air quality, he said. It won't impact the ozone levels in the Victoria air shed.

The question isn't whether or not the plant will affect air quality in Victoria County, it's how much, Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen, said.

The county is already a near-nonattainment area for ground-level ozone, he said. Reaching that limit could deter other industries from seeing Victoria as viable, not to mention the health effects, Smith said, adding Victoria is within 100 miles of four proposed coal-fired plants.

Fine particles emitted from coal plants already caused the premature deaths of 160 people, Smith said. The particles can pick up unburned hydrocarbons while traveling through the air.

They can trigger asthma attacks, he said.

Smith admits Unit 2 will be "far cleaner" than Unit 1, but it is not enough. "This plant can be stopped," Smith told residents. "We know a lot more than we did 20 years ago."

Margie Pahmiyer, a retired registered nurse who lives in Quail Creek, asked about how long it would take mercury to leave the human body. The proposed plant would emit 140 pounds of mercury a year.

It would take three to six months, Karen Hadden of the SEED Coalition said. Mercury can cause brain damage in developing fetuses.

"I'm worried, especially since our air quality -- it's borderline, " Pahmiyer said.

The capture technology in Unit 2 will protect public health, Fields said, adding the plant's permitted emissions are lower than any coal-fired plant in Texas.

The plant plans to request a contested case hearing for its air permit so the public can ask more questions, he said. He wants to talk openly with his neighbors.

TIMELINE

Within weeks: Will receive draft air permit from TCEQ

2009: Public hearings on draft permits

Mid-2009: Would receive final U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Section 404 permit to lengthen water flow path; Would receive final Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for effluent TCEQ.

Early Early 2010: Start of construction, which will continue through 2015

What is "Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars?"

Narrated by Robert Redford and produced by The Redford Center at the Sundance Preserve and Alpheus Media -- Chronicles the fight of farmers and ranchers and a coalition of mayors around the Dallas-Fort Worth area to fight proposed TXU Energy coal-fired plants, convincing buyers to reduce the number from 11 to three. For more information, visit www.fightinggoliathfilm.com.

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