By Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 3, 2006; B05

Federal officials yesterday allowed the coal-fired Mirant power plant in Alexandria to increase its production to near capacity, nine months after it was shut down amid environmental concerns.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued an order that will permit the plant to boost production as long as the aging plant on the Potomac River does not exceed federal air quality standards. Mirant had been running on a limited basis since it was shuttered last summer. Air quality monitoring will be done using less stringent standards than had been required, officials said.

The plant, formally known as the Potomac River Generating Station, sits on a verdant spot just south of Reagan National Airport. In recent months, the plant's environmental troubles have been the center of a legal tussles among federal and state agencies and the city of Alexandria, where officials want it shut down.

"We are not going to take this sitting down," Vice Mayor Redella S. "Del" Pepper (D) said yesterday. "The plant was closed in August, and now they're almost back to normal production? That's not progress."

Federal officials, including Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, have argued that the plant must stay open because it is vital to the region's power grid and essential to national security. Mirant serves Pepco customers in the District and Maryland, dozens of federal agencies, the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.

"We understand how important this plant is for reliability," said Corry Leigh, a Mirant spokeswoman. "It's critical Mirant operates as many units as possible to ensure this."

Officials in Alexandria, who have tried many legal tactics to close the plant, say it is a nuisance, fouling the air with noxious gases and particulate matter that can clog lungs and leave ashy soot on nearby homes.

Pepper, co-chair of the city's Mirant monitoring group, said city officials received the news of yesterday's announcement with "outrage and disbelief."

Others applauded the EPA's directive, echoing federal concerns about the region's safety.

"That power supply is of critical importance to us, because power from the plant serves much of the downtown, and without it that puts our reliability at risk," said Robert Dobkin, a Pepco spokesman.

The plant, built in 1949, was closed in August after testing showed it was exceeding standards for emissions of nitrogen and sulfur dioxide and particulate matter. It later reopened to operate at about half-capacity during the winter.

Mirant has begun injecting trona, a sodium carbonate-based mineral, into its boiler exhaust, saying the material has cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 80 percent. But opponents of the plant say trona is experimental and may be a pollutant.

Leigh said the company is working on additional engineering solutions and will be installing new sulfur dioxide monitors as part of the EPA directive.

U.S. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D), a longtime critic of Mirant, accused the federal government of turning public health into a political issue.

"I'm just very disappointed that the EPA decided to weigh in on one of the worst corporate polluters in the Washington region," he said.