TVA: Environmentalists debate coal plant repairs made by regional utility

TVA: Environmentalists debate coal plant repairs made by regional utility

BY ANDY SHER
WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON -- Costly repairs that the Tennessee
Valley Authority made to its coal-fired power plants are be-
ing cited by environmentalists in their ongoing battle against
expected changes in federal clean air rules.
TVA spent an estimated $208 million on what it contin-
ues to call "routine maintenance, repair and replace-
ment" at nine of its 11 plants between 1982 and 1996, ac-
cording to Environmental Protection Agency docu-
ments. In one instance at the
Allen Power Plant near
Memphis, TVA built a mini-
rail and monorail to install
new equipment in the boiler
as part of a $10.7 million up-
grade.
While TVA officials said the
agency has done nothing
wrong, an EPA appeals board
ruled against the federal util-
ity last year. The board said

"For some 20 years we were
in compliance and then we
weren't anymore," Ms. Martoc-
ci said, placing blame on what
she said was EPA's reinterpretation of rules.

A NATIONAL DEBATE
A forthcoming decision by
the Bush administration on what
rules all power utilities, refiner-
ies and manufacturers must fol-
low to modernize their facilities
may make it easier for TVA to
argue its case.
The expected decision, how-
ever, had environmentalists last
week launching a pre-emptive
strike against the Bush adminis-
tration and the electric utility in-
dustry in general.
Prominent in their attacks
were facts from the EPA action
against TVA.
Conrad G. Schneider, policy
and technical coordinator for the
Clean Air Task Force, said TVA's
actions are little different from
what others in the electric util-
ity industry are doing.
"TVA's kind of a window on
what's going on," Mr. Schneider
said.
What's different about TVA
is that the information is avail-
able to the public, Mr. Schnei-
der said. He said most informa-
tion regarding other utilities has
been sealed by courts.
He said TVA tried to get a
similar order, but EPA officials
refused.
Stephen Smith, executive di-
rector of the Knoxville-based
Southern Alliance for Clean En-
ergy, said the TVA case "under-
mines the utilities' argument that
these things are routine mainte-
nance when they're doing over-
hauls at the plants."
Last week, activists with the
Clean Air Task Force, National
Environmental Trust and U.S.
Public Interest Research Group
held a news conference. They
ridiculed TVA assertions that its
repairs were "routine."
Mr. Schneider noted how in
one case involving $10.7 million
of work at the Allen Power Plant
in Shelby County, TVA con-
structed a mini railroad on a plat-
form and monorail inside a boil-
er to ferry huge pieces of equip-
ment in and out.
Mr. Schneider said that the
former Allen plant manager,
Alan Hekking, said the "project
was not routine in any sense of
the word."
The EPA Environmental Ap-
peals Board found TVA spent
several years planning some pro-
jects and it took 13 months to
carry out one major project.
In its ruling on Sept. 15, 2000,
the board said TVA's "view of
the breadth of the exception
would swallow the rule that sub-
jects existing sources to the re-
quirement to install modern pol-
lution controls when physical
changes that increase emissions
are made to the plants."

TVA: EPA WRONG
But TVA and utility industry
officials say the EPA's actions
aren't fair.
In July, Joe Bynum, executive
vice president of TVA's fossil
power group, testified before a
federal interagency panel ex-
amining the New Source Review
regulations that are the subject
of the controversy.
"How the NSR program is in-
terpreted and applied will have
a significant impact on the reli-
ability of the nation's electric
system," Mr. Bynum warned the
panel.
He said TVA has spent more
than $2.5 billion on pollution
controls and is spending anoth-
er $1 billion on yet more con-
trols.
"We are spending this money
and putting these controls on
the very power plants that some
in this debate assert are 'grand-
fathered' from controls," Mr.
Bynum said. "While this asser-
tion may be clever propaganda,
it is simply not true."
Mr. Bynum said that without
coal-fired plants, "the public's
quality of life, well-being and
health, all of which depend on
adequate and reliable supplies
of electricity will be under-
mined."
In his written testimony, Mr.
Bynum said EPA interpretations
could lose TVA between 12 mil-
lion to 34 million megawatts of
power annually. The 12 million
megawatt estimate, he said, rep-
resents about 11 percent of TVA's
power.
Efforts to contact Mr. Bynum
last week were unsuccessful.
Environmentalist Mr. Schnei-
der said utilities' arguments
about a "so-called reliability cri-
sis" is a "red herring."
People "soon will be awash
in power in every part of the
country," Mr. Schneider said.

But Jayne Brady, a spokes-
woman with the Edison Electric
Institute, said the New Source
Review rules are a "a very com-
plicated set of regulations."
"As far as NSR is concerned,
the way it stands right now, what
our industry is asking for is more
certainty within the regulatory
process. And by that I mean that
at least with the NSR, the guid-
ance has been very contradicto-
ry within the EPA itself."

E-mail Andy Sher at
asher@timesfreepress.com