N.J. to plant: Clean up your act

Apr 28 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Andrew McGill The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Sitting before the microphone, Steve Davies must have known he was outnumbered.

A vice president at GenOn, which manages the controversial Portland Generating Station along the Delaware River in Northampton County, he kept his statement to federal regulators short and simple, singing the praises of the power plant and promising to keep the environment in mind.

Then, from the second-to-last row in the crowded Pequest Trout Hatchery meeting hall in New Jersey, he twiddled with his BlackBerry as nearly three dozen others suggested, with the same poise, that he and his polluting plant be run out of town.

"It's an emotional issue," he said. "These are tough issues -- it's difficult for the regular person to get their head around it."

n a crowded public meeting, residents, politicians and activists urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enforce tough emission rules on the power plant, which New Jersey says spewed 30,000 tons of sulfur dioxide over four counties in 2009. A federal proposal, which could go into effect as early as this fall, would require the plant to cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 81 percent over three years.

Wednesday's meeting, hosted by EPA officials, offered all parties a chance to weigh in on the regulators' proposal. By 4 p.m., five people had stood up and defended the plant. More than 25, on the other hand, called for swift action.

"It is unacceptable that this single facility is adversely affecting public health across such a wide area," New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said. "We will not back down from our resolve to force the Portland power plant to take action."

Some called for even more drastic measures, including emissions cuts as high as 95 percent or a total shutdown.

Frank Van Horn has served as mayor of Knowlton Township, just across the river from the plant, for more than 20 years. His father was mayor before him. And as long as his family has been in politics, they've worried about what he described as black clouds drifting over the Delaware from the plant, clouds that sometimes stained their morning skies like a dirty glass.

His area hosts abnormally high rates of asthma, doctors testified. And it falls smack-dab in the center of a widening plume of sulfur dioxide pollution that New Jersey officials say blankets Warren, Sussex, Hunterdon and Morris counties.

"We're affected more than anyone else," Van Horn said. "I want this plant to clean up."

The coal-fired plant ranks among the top five in the nation for sulfur dioxide pollution released per megawatt of power generated, New Jersey officials testified. The EPA's proposal comes after New Jersey filed a Clean Air Act petition against the plant, which the state says generates more pollution than all of New Jersey's coal-fired generators combined.

The plant, whose twin smokestacks loom over the banks of the Delaware near Route 611, is also a major producer of nitrogen oxides, mercury and other pollutants, New Jersey officials said.

Davies pleaded with the panel to give the company time to study costs and determine a best course of action. Last week, he said the plant would likely close if the cost of installing scrubbers stretched above $300 million, even though they could likely reduce emissions by up to 98 percent.

That would devastate Upper Mount Bethel and the Slate Belt at large, township Supervisor Bob Gerwig testified. A retired engineer who's installed scrubbers himself, he's all in favor of cleaner skies -- but his town might not survive the loss of the plant, which county officials testified brings $30 million to the local economy in direct spending

"Please do not simply shut them down without any consideration to the impact to our community," Gerwig said.

The EPA will accept public comment on the petition until May 27.

andrew.mcgill@mcall.com

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