They call for stricter standards at Centralia coal-fired plant
Are Gov. Chris Gregoire and the state Department of Ecology offering TransAlta, the Canadian owner of Washington’s only coal-fired electrical plant, a sweet deal?
Sixteen environmental and public health organizations told the state this week that technologies exist to curb the Centralia plant’s nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions by far more than TransAlta agreed to in a settlement agreement negotiated with Ecology behind closed doors.
One technique now in use in 14 U.S. coal-fired plants has been shown to slash mercury emissions by 90 percent, nearly twice the 50 percent TransAlta agreed to in the settlement, conservationists said, citing an October study by the U.S. General Accounting Office.
The settlement, negotiated over two years, was made public in March. The Southwest Clean Air Agency in Vancouver, which is responsible for issuing the plant’s air quality permit, was largely cut out of the negotiations. A public comment period on the deal closed Monday.
Among the advocacy groups calling for stricter standards were the National Parks Conservation Association, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Sierra Club, the Washington Environmental Council and the National Wildlife Federation. They pressed the governor and Ecology officials to set aside the settlement agreement and begin a rigorous public process to hold the plant to tougher emission standards.
“This agreement is not a compromise as between two ends of a spectrum, but rather a capitulation,” wrote Janette K. Brimmer, an attorney with the environmental law firm Earthjustice.
Haze harms views
The Centralia plant emits between 12,000 and 16,000 tons of nitrogen oxide annually. The National Park Service says it is by far the state’s major contributor to the haze that obscures pristine views in many of the state’s national parks and wilderness areas and in the Columbia River Gorge.
The plant also is by far the state’s largest stationary source of greenhouse gas emissions. Separate negotiations are under way between Ecology and TransAlta to cut the plant’s carbon emissions in half by 2025.
Under the negotiated settlement, TransAlta would eventually reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 20 percent, mainly through a “flex fuels” strategy that involves shifting from the use of coal mined near Centralia to cleaner coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. TransAlta closed its Centralia coal mine in 2006 and completed the transition to the cleaner coal in 2007.
Brimmer said the federal Clean Air Act requires states to ensure that major sources of air pollution adopt “Best Available Retrofit Technology” to control pollutants that cause or contribute to haze.
Use of a technology called “selective catalytic reduction” is “both technically feasible and the most cost-effective option when considering the visibility improvements that would occur at Mount Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades national parks, and nine other Class 1 wilderness areas administered by the U.S. Forest Service,” Brimmer said in her letter, citing Park Service studies.
Ecology spokesman Seth Preston said the standard does not require installation of the most stringent controls but allows “a balancing of several factors,” including visibility impacts, the cost of the technology and the life of the plant. Ecology determined that the flex fuels strategy met the standard, he said.
Mercury limit
The TransAlta plant also emits mercury, a potent neurotoxin that is hazardous to human health but is unregulated by the EPA. Under the settlement, TransAlta would voluntarily commit to cutting mercury emissions by half.
Ecology officials have said that’s a voluntary concession because a federal limit on mercury emissions was overturned by a federal court last year, and no federal rule is currently in place.
Environmentalists contend that the state has both the authority and the obligation to control mercury emissions under a state law that prohibits any person from causing or permitting “the emission of any air contaminant from any source if it is detrimental to the health, safety or welfare of any person.”
Preston said the state could adopt its own mercury limit, but the process would take about two years and would likely end up in litigation. “Having an agreement between Ecology and TransAlta means we will achieve added reductions much faster than going through a rule process and legal challenges,” he said.
GAO report
According to the October GAO report, many states already mandate a 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions. The report’s authors said a 90 percent reductions is “achievable and cost-effective” with all three main types of coal and with boiler configurations that exist at nearly three-fourths of U.S. coal-fired plants.
A 2008 Department of Energy study cited in the GAO report found that a system that injects sorbents — powdery substances to which mercury binds — into the exhaust from boilers of coal-fired power plants was ready for commercial deployment. That technology is now being used with 25 boilers at 14 coal-fired plants and has achieved, on average, a 90 percent reductions in emissions, the GAO said.
Preston said the GAO study came out after Ecology and TransAlta had concluded negotiations, so its findings were not included in the settlement. But he said the Centralia plant is testing a technology similar to sorbent injections and hopes it will allow at least a 50 percent reduction in mercury emissions.
Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.
