Mirant Plan Breaks Emission Cap
Proposal to DOE Envisions Plant Slightly Breaching Limits

By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 12, 2006

Mirant Corp. is proposing to increase operations at its troubled Alexandria power plant by using a method that the company acknowledges would trigger emissions that exceed federal air quality standards.

Meanwhile, Virginia officials raised environmental concerns last week about a planned power-line outage that would force the plant to operate at close to capacity for nearly two weeks to compensate for the out-of-service line. The line outage, which state officials said could cause air quality problems in Alexandria because of the increased plant activity, was scheduled to begin yesterday.

The developments were the latest in a flurry of government activity over the plant, which the city and neighbors are campaigning to have shut down as a health hazard. The coal-fired facility briefly closed in August because of environmental problems but reopened on a limited basis the next month. Then, last month, the U.S. Department of Energy ordered Mirant to step up operations, saying the plant's energy is necessary to prevent a blackout in the District.

To comply with the federal directive, Mirant recently filed a response in which it told federal regulators that it favors what it called Option B to increase production at the plant. Under the plan, the company would operate three of the plant's five units continuously and the other two units one day per week for eight hours. Only one unit is operating, and that on a limited basis.

The company said that under Option B, emissions from the plant probably would exceed air quality standards for the pollutant sulfur dioxide. But Mirant said the level would be only marginally above the limits and would not affect public health.

"Mirant believes that the most effective way of balancing the competing demands of electric system reliability, environmental stewardship and good engineering practice is Option B," the company said in the filing with the Department of Energy.

In response, the department told Mirant last week to temporarily proceed with a modified start-up plan, which the company said would not cause the plant to exceed air quality standards, while the federal government investigates the matter. The department said Option B is still under consideration, along with other possibilities.

Mirant's proposal angered city officials and activists. Neighbors have complained for years about what they believe to be high levels of contaminants emanating from the plant, which also provides electricity to Maryland but not to Virginia.

"We've been down this road before," said Mayor William D. Euille (D). "What Mirant really needs to do is clean up their act and provide the protection for the environment and the community and plan a strategy to shut down completely."

Longtime Alexandria resident Elizabeth Chimento, who has helped lead the effort against the plant, said Mirant's plan was "hastily conceived" and "demonstrates a lack of serious concern for the health effects at stake, determining instead that the plant must run, regardless of public health consequences."

Steve Arabia, a Mirant spokesman, said the company is simply "complying with the order from the Department of Energy."

Mirant decided Aug. 24 to shut down the plant in response to an order from Virginia officials to cut potentially harmful pollution. The directive by the state Department of Environmental Quality came after the agency reviewed an analysis that showed that some pollutants in the plant's vicinity were sometimes at levels considerably higher than federal rules allow.

Last month, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said the plant's shutdown had created an "emergency situation" because it is one of only three sources of energy for much of the District.

Bodman said the plant's reopening on a limited basis is insufficient to prevent a blackout if the other energy sources -- two transmission lines -- were to fail. Such a blackout, officials said, would last at least 28 hours and affect areas including the central business district, Georgetown and key federal institutions.

Bodman's order requires Mirant to maintain all of the plant's five units at peak readiness and run them if other electricity supplies to the District are down.

Federal officials acknowledged the unlikelihood of both the transmission lines to the District failing simultaneously, but they said that at least one of the lines has been down 41 times since 2000 because of maintenance or mechanical problems.

As an example, Pepco was planning last week to temporarily take down one of the lines for routine maintenance starting Monday, requiring the Mirant plant to temporarily operate at or near capacity. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality strongly protested the move, telling federal officials that the plant was not ready and that not enough environmental safeguards were in place.

"We expect it will result in significant air-quality problems," Bill Hayden, a DEQ spokesman, said in an interview. "Our number one concern from the beginning has been to protect air quality in the Alexandria area."

But Pepco said it planned to go ahead with the outage. "You have to take these lines down every so often to do the required maintenance to maintain their reliability," said Robert Dobkin, a Pepco spokesman. "There is too much risk here, to the city and to the federal government, not to do that."