Clean Air Act rules change upsets some

Clean Air Act rules change upsets some

Alabama Power plants affected

By TAYLOR BRIGHT
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD

A proposed EPA rule that could exempt some Alabama utility plants from upgrading their pollution controls has some environmentalists steaming.

But utilities, including Alabama Power Co., said they will continue reducing emissions from their plants and must still answer to state officials for their permits to run their plants.

At the center of the debate is a change in an Environmental Protection Agency rule about "routine maintenance," a change pushed by the Bush administration.

The previous rule required power companies to attach pollution controls when they updated old plants that were exempted from the 1970 Clean Air Act. The government required additional controls when the maintenance costs exceeded 5 percent of the plant's value, according to environmentalists.

Under the new rule, pollution controls would be added only if repairs exceeded 20 percent of the plant's value.

"That's a big difference," said Ulla-Britt Reeves, clean air program director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Knoxville.

The rule still faces public input before the EPA officially puts it into effect.

The new rule would exempt old-coal fired plants — Alabama Power has six — from further pollution controls when the plants undergo "routine maintenance."

"I can't even find words to tell you how incredibly frustrating these actions by the administration are," said Reeves. "It's shocking how blatant the administration is."

Environmentalists said the revised EPA rules, a change pushed by the Bush administration, would let power companies, including Alabama Power, pollute more while increasing their power output.

Reeves said the change in the EPA's rules removed a tool to force utilities to put pollution controls on their plants, and will give Alabama dirtier air.

Southern Co., which owns Alabama Power Co., said the EPA decision on "new source review" — the official title for updating a plant's pollution controls during maintenance — was a good one.

"This is a victory," said Tiffany Gilstrap, spokeswoman for Southern Co. in Atlanta. "This is not a green light to pollute as some would have you believe."

Power companies have complained that they couldn't do small repairs without having to spend money to put in pollution controls.

Alabama Power's Miller Electric Generating Plant's selective catalytic reduction system is shown in this Jan. 6 file photo. It was under construction at the time. The EPA has proposed emission rules changes on some power plants, prompting protests from environmentalists.

"I've never seen a power plant that had better environmental performance by virtue of the fact it was maintained less often," said Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council in Washington, a utility company lobbying group.

Segal said the rule change became an issue because an environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, focused on the rule as a fundraising issue.

"That gives you an incentive to take a minor and arcane question from the Clean Air Act and blow it completely out of proportion," Segal said.

But John Walke, director of clean air programs for the Natural Resource Defense Council in Washington, said the power companies couldn't be trusted to voluntarily clean up their plants.

"The 30-year history of the Clean Air Act is a resistance by the utility sector," Walke said. "More than any other industry they have litigated against every step to clean up their air pollution. The evidence of their success is we still have 40- to 60-year-old grandfathered power plants that are operating in many cases without controls."

Gilstrap said Southern Co. had plans to add pollution controls called "scrubbers," which reduce emission of sulfur dioxide on some of their plants, but did not list specifics. The company, which has plants in four states, has no scrubbers on any of its plants now.

Southern Co. will spend $4 billion for pollution controls at its plants from now until 2015, Gilstrap said.

Alabama Power's Plant Gorgas in Walker County has been outfitted with selective catalytic reduction systems to curb pollution. Plant Miller in West Jefferson will have such systems in place by 2005, said Michael Sznajderman, spokesman for Alabama Power.

"None of that is going to change," Sznajderman said.

The systems will cost a total of $500 million, he said.

Gorgas, Miller and Plant Barry in Mobile are at the center of an earlier EPA lawsuit against Southern Co., which charged the company with doing more than routine maintenance on one of its plants and not installing pollution controls. Gilstrap said the rule change would not affect the court case.