(Bill O'Leary/ WASHINGTON POST ) - Cyclists pass by the power plant on the Mount Vernon trail.
Alexandria’s controversial coal-burning power plant, once considered one of the largest single sources of air pollution in the Washington area, will probably close by October 2012, its owner and the city announced Tuesday.
The surprise announcement culminates a 12-year battle to close the six-decade-old Potomac River plant, which local activists and environmentalists blame for causing or contributing to dozens of cases of serious illness each year.
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A spokeswoman for GenOn, the owner of the plant, said the plant has complied with environmental regulations and called the planned closing a “good business decision but a difficult one” because its 120 jobs will vanish.
It appears the economics of energy, in particular the prospect of increasingly costly pollution controls, pushed GenOn to consider pulling the plug.
If the plant does indeed wind down, the site could open up options for redeveloping Alexandria’s waterfront, an effort that has focused on a far smaller stretch of about eight blocks.
Long known by the name of its former owner, Mirant — which through a merger became GenOn — the plant sits on 25 prime acres. The parcel cuts Old Town Alexandria off from the water and is adjacent to a popular walking and bicycling trail on National Park Service land.
The GenOn plant provides up to 5 percent of the area’s electricity, but its importance has diminished in recent years as more power has been carried into the area on two new high-voltage transmission lines. Under a 2008 agreement with the city, it has also reduced the pollutants it emits from its smokestacks but still was fined for permit violations in the spring. It also was forced to compete with cheaper and cleaner natural gas-generated electricity just as the nation entered a recession.
As part of the deal announced Tuesday, the City of Alexandria will release about $32 million it was holding in escrow that GenOn was going to use to pay for new environmental controls at the plant. To get that money back, GenOn agreed to close the generation station by Oct. 1, 2012, or “if the plant is needed beyond that date for reliability purposes, as soon as it is no longer needed,” the agreement said.
The anticipated closure of the plant was greeted with measured enthusiasm by local activists who have been working on the issue since 1999 and were taken by surprise by the deal.
“I’m just a little bit concerned about the clause in the deal that says ‘unless . . . ’ ” said Poul Hertel, an Alexandria resident who started looking into the issue with Elizabeth Chimento in 1999. “That takes a bit off the exuberance, because it’s potentially moving the goal line. . . . Let’s just say the cork is still in the champagne bottle until everyone signs off on it.”
GenOn has 89 years to go on a 99-year lease on the property from Pepco, and GenOn spokeswoman Misty Allen said the company will retain and maintain the site. Whether the company will sell or sublet the land for an expansion of the city’s waterfront is one of many possibilities, Allen said.
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