Press Mention The Knoxville News-Sentinel June 30, 2002
SACE Quoted
Court orders TVA, EPA to get mediation in dispute
In this mention
A federal appeals court has ordered the Tennessee Valley Authority and EPA to use mediation to resolve their dispute over pollution-control upgrades at TVA's coal-fired power plants. Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, expressed cautious skepticism about the mediation order while affirming the strength of the environmental case against TVA. The EPA had sued TVA and 12 other utilities in 1999 for violating the Clean Air Act by making improvements to plants without installing new pollution-control equipment.
The case against TVA is very good.
Stephen A. Smith
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Court orders TVA, EPA to
get mediation in dispute
By The Associated Press
CHATTANOOGA - The Tennessee Valley Authority and the Environmental Protection Agency must use a mediator to resolve their dispute over cleanup of TVA's coal-fired power plants, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered.
A three-judge panel referred the case on Friday to the Kinnard Mediation Center in Atlanta, saying it would hold the case in abeyance for 60 days to give the two parties time to resolve their dispute. The order requires the parties to report back to the court by August.
Neither EPA nor TVA asked for the mediation, according to both parties.
"It's an interesting and somewhat unusual development in the case, and I would say the petitioners (TVA and electric utility interests) remain cautiously optimistic about our chances of succeeding," said Eric Seagull, a spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a consortium of utilities sympathetic to TVA's arguments against EPA.
Stephen Smith, executive director of the Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said environmentalists were still studying the court order.
"I don't know if it bodes good," Smith said. "The case against TVA is very good."
EPA sued TVA as well as 12 utilities in the South and Midwest in 1999 to impose tougher air quality standards under the Clean Air Act.
The EPA said TVA violated the act for 20 years by making improvements at seven of the company's 11 coal-fired plants in Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky without installing new pollution-control equipment.
TVA contends that work on the plants fell under the category of routine maintenance rather than major modifications, which exempted them from the upgrades.
TVA and EPA negotiated for months trying to resolve the issue before EPA imposed an order and TVA countersued. In January, the 11th Circuit ruled that TVA could appeal the order.