Lawyer: Greensburg's Allegheny Energy damaged health

Sep 14 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Brian Bowling The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Allegheny Energy Inc. has violated state and federal law and harmed the health of people in five states for the past 15 years by refusing to bring three Western Pennsylvania power plants into compliance with air regulations, an attorney representing Pennsylvania and four other states said yesterday.

The utility played "hide and seek" with state regulators to avoid having to spend millions of dollars on pollution-control technology for the coal-fired power plants, said Marianne Mulroy, a lawyer for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

"The facts supporting these claims were not known to anyone but Allegheny Energy," she said during opening remarks in a non-jury federal trial in Pittsburgh expected last into next week.

Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey and New York want U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster to order Greensburg-based Allegheny Energy to install modern pollution controls and fine the utility for failing to comply with state and federal regulations.

A lawyer for the company argued that the states are misapplying laws that require utilities to add modern pollution controls to older plants if they undertake major repairs or replacements on them.

Thomas Cottingham, one of the lawyers representing Allegheny Energy, said state regulators were aware of the repairs and improvements the company made in the 1990s to three plants. They are the 1,710-megawatt Hatfield's Ferry plant in Cumberland, Greene County; the 356-megawatt Armstrong plant in Washington, Armstrong County; and the 420-megawatt Mitchell power plant in Union, Washington County. One megawatt powers about 800 homes.

Allegheny Energy "got all the permits and did all the work" under the scrutiny of DEP and the state Public Utilities Commission, he said.

In February, Allegheny Energy said it completed $1.3 billion of pollution control equipment work at two of its largest power plants, which annually will remove more than 200,000 tons of sulphur dioxide from its emissions. Installation of scrubbers was concluded at the 1.1-million-watt Fort Martin power plant, located near Morgantown, W.Va., and in October, scrubber installation was completed at the Hatfield's Ferry plant.

When the lawsuit was filed in 2005, Allegheny Energy said the company was taking steps to reduce emissions, but estimated it would take about $1 billion to achieve total compliance with state and federal regulations

Allegheny Energy operates 11 coal-fired plants in its system, which provides service to about 1.7 million customers, including about 700,000 in Pennsylvania. The state environmental agency said then that the company was the fifth-largest emitter of sulfur dioxide and the 10th-largest emitter of nitrogen oxide in the country.