Virginia Air Pollution Board to Consider Mirant's Plan for Potomac River Site
By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 13, 2007
It is the Power Plant That Won't Die: a boxy hulk along the Potomac River that has been denounced, detested, challenged in court and even briefly shut down but still keeps on bringing in Appalachian coal and blowing out exhaust.
The Potomac River Generating Station, a 58-year-old facility located incongruously on Alexandria's scenic waterfront, will face its umpteenth challenge today before a Virginia permit board. Neighbors and city officials say the plant fouls the air with smog and soot. Its owner, Mirant, insists the plant is clean enough now and getting cleaner.
A closer look at the area's most controversial smokestacks, including interviews with environmentalists and federal regulators, shows they turn out far less pollution than larger power plants in the region. Compared with coal plants nationwide, it's only a middling polluter.
But it still has serious flaws, environmental advocates say. The plant lacks some modern cleanup technology, and its urban location means its exhaust can do more harm to public health than a similar plant in a rural area.
"It has a disproportionately high impact" in terms of causing asthma and other health problems, said Conrad Schneider of the advocacy group Clean Air Task Force. That is "primarily because it's located right in the middle of town," he said.
The plant opened in 1949, when the waterfront north of Old Town was an industrial strip. Since then, it's been surrounded by neighborhoods and high-rise condominiums as it kept on burning coal, up to 900,000 tons a year.
That makes it one of the area's last urban power plants. The two left in the District, at Buzzard Point in Southwest and along Benning Road in Northeast, operate only rarely and are scheduled to shut down in 2012. The others are scattered in the outer suburbs.
Neighbor Mary Harris said she notices a fine powder that settles on the windows and indoor furniture in her 14th-floor condominium.
"What they're putting out is ending up in our place," said Harris, wiping her palm on an end table near the door to her balcony recently. "You can just put your hand right here, and you'll get plenty of dust."
Mirant officials said the plant has nothing to apologize for. In the last few years, upgrades have reduced its emissions of sulfur dioxide, which irritates lungs, by 64 percent, and nitrous oxides, a precursor to smog, have dropped more than 24 percent, they said.
"It's not an old dirty plant," said Debra Raggio Bolton, an assistant general counsel for Atlanta-based Mirant. "It's very up to speed. It's environmentally sound."
Clean-air advocates said the picture is not that rosy. Because of its age, the plant lacks cleanup technology installed in newer facilities, they said.
"It's a Truman-era plant, and it's probably right now somewhere in the late '70s" in terms of pollution-control technology, said Eric Schaeffer of the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project. One major piece of technology that's missing are "scrubbers," machines that remove pollutants such as sulfur dioxide. Mirant said it doesn't have space to install scrubbers, so instead it has used another method.
Overall, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials said the Potomac plant complies with all applicable rules. They said its pollution load would put it in the middle ranks of coal plants across the country. In the region, five plants in the Maryland suburbs produce more power than the Potomac plant and more sulfur dioxide.
Environmentalists said the Potomac plant's location makes it especially worrisome: Other coal plants are far from urban centers, with fewer people nearby to breathe their exhaust.
Concerns about those effects have convinced opponents, including Alexandria officials, that the plant must be overhauled with modern pollution controls or simply shut down.
"Basically, we say, 'Clean up or get out,' " said Ernie Lehmann, a board member of a local chapter of the Sierra Club.
Opponents have tried lawsuits and zoning to close the plant, but it has survived. It was closed for a time in 2005, after an analysis showed that its emissions could exceed limits. The plant reopened and is operating at a reduced capacity, using only three of its five boilers, to limit emissions.
Today will bring a new round in the fight. Virginia's Air Pollution Control Board will meet at 4 p.m. at the Nannie J. Lee Recreation Center, 1108 Jefferson St., to consider a plan by Mirant that would blow the plant's exhaust higher into the atmosphere, dispersing it a greater distance. Mirant says that would allow the plant to burn more coal without harming neighborhoods.
One thing will have changed from previous battles. Before, the Department of Energy had ordered that the plant remain open to provide backup power for the District during an emergency. The plant is no longer needed for that purpose because two lines were built this summer to connect the city with the regional power grid.
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