TVA urged to clean coal-fired facilities

TV A urged
to clean
coal-fired
facilities
Utility official says
more study needed

BY ANDY SHER
WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON — Officials with an environmental group said a new study that links fine particles from coal-fired power plants, factories and trucks to increased cancer risks should encourage the Tennessee Valley Authority to clean up its power plant emissions.

"This has very real implications for TVA, and most importantly, it has implications for us who have to breathe and for the Great Smoky Mountains," said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Coalition for Clean Energy.

However, John Shipp, the federal electric utility's manager of environmental policy and planning, said the study published in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association is inconclusive. More study is needed, he said.

"The biggest shortcoming to those studies is they attempt to correlate total concentrations or mass of fine particles with health impacts in large cities," Mr. Shipp said.

The medical study comes in the midst of a political fight. The Bush administration is seeking to relax federal Environmental Protection Agency actions against aging coal-fired power plants and factories that allegedly violate the law by undergoing major renovations without installing new air pollution control equipment.

Environmentalists and industry have locked horns over the issue. So have the EPA and TVA, which are battling in federal court over EPA's con-

tention that TVA broke environmental rules in updating its 11 coal-fired plants.

The plants provide an estimated 60 percent of TVA's electricity, Mr. Shipp said, adding that TVA is participating in a study with the Department of Energy.

He said the TVA and DOE study would sort through the differences in particles caused by power plant emissions and other sources, such as diesel.

In the American Medical Association study, he said, "they (scientists) make the leap, or they make the assumption, that all fine particles are created equal with regard to health effects. There are many, many different types of fine particles in the air."

He said the TVA and DOE study may determine there are differences in the particles or "they may find they are all created equal. But we don't know that right now."

The ongoing study and Bush administration efforts to relax enforcement were discussed in a recent hearing of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. The panel, chaired by Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., heard testimony from EPA Administrator Christine Whitman and a former EPA official who recently resigned over attempts to "weaken" enforcement against power plants.

Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., is the ranking Republican on the panel.

Also during the hearings, Sen. Lieberman discussed the "long-term health consequences that weak new source review enforcement policies can bring," a committee aide said.