Pennsylvania power plants third dirtiest in USA

Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant emissions ranked as the third-dirtiest in the United States in 2001, according to an environmental study, and Reliant Energy's Keystone power plant in Armstrong County emitted more mercury than any power plant in the nation. Only North Carolina and Texas electric utilities emitted more pollution than Pennsylvania utilities in 2001, according to "Toxic Neighbours," a study of US Environmental Protection Agency data released by the Clean Air Council.
Only Texas and Ohio utilities emitted more mercury than the 7,427 pounds released by Pennsylvania utilities in 2001. Nationwide, power plants released more than 91,000 pounds of mercury, a dangerous neurotoxin that can cause brain damage and harm reproduction in women and wildlife.
"Pennsylvania families should be angry that they are being exposed to dangerous levels of mercury, a toxic chemical that can cause serious developmental problems in children," said Arthur Stamoulis of the Clean Air Council, which released the study in Pittsburgh and nationwide.

The Keystone power plant, in Shelocta, released 1,800 pounds of mercury in 2001. Other coal-burning power plants in Pennsylvania that ranked high for mercury emissions were First Energy's Bruce Mansfield plant (11th) in Shippingport, Beaver County; Allegheny Energy's Hatfield's Ferry power station (27th) in Greene County; Reliant Energy's Shawville station (32nd) in Clearfield County and its Conemaugh generating station (42nd) in Indiana County.
The study, which analyses the quantity and nature of toxic pollution from the nation's 400 power plants, was released as the Bush administration announced some specifics of its Clear Skies legislation, including smog and ozone transport rules and a new rule that would delay and weaken implementation of Clean Air Act requirements to regulate mercury emissions from power plants. Utilities are currently the only unregulated industrial emitters of mercury.

According to the EPA, the administration's mercury controlproposal would scrap across-the-board controls on utilities in favour of a cap-and-trade system that would allow utilities to reduce mercury emissions from some plants but not others. The program would aim to cut mercury emissions by 30 % by 2010 and 70 % by 2018. The program is a change from one proposed by Bush's first EPA administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, in December 2001, which the agency said would have reduced mercury emissions by 90 % by 2008 using currently available technologies.
A host of environmental groups and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean have criticized the administration's plan because it would delay implementation of mercury controls and could allow some utilities to avoid making any reductions at all at some older, coal-burning power plants, creating "hot spots" of mercury contamination.

The EPA's own draft proposal recognized that the cap-and-trade program might not reduce the adverse health effects of mercury emissions because "any particular utility may opt to purchase allowances instead of implementing controls" and those continued high emissions "may have adverse health impacts within the local area."
"This possible retreat from technologically achievable and meaningful mercury standards leaves our citizens among the biggest losers," said Sue Seppi, director of the Group Against Smog and Pollution. "This action is yet another in a dismal series of EPA decisions that effectively slow if not reverse clean air progress."
Richard Wheatley, a Reliant Energy spokesman, said the company's power plants are operating according to current state and federal regulations and would meet the administration's mercury mandates.
"The cap-and-trade proposal is a more effective use of our money than retrofitting our plants with emissions controls," Wheatley said. He said it is too early to say if the Keystone facility would be one that would reduce mercury emissions if the Bush proposal is finalized.

Chris Kimmel, 60, a farmer who owns 1,600 acres around the Keystone power plant and was rushing to get in a last load of corn, said he isn't concerned about the mercury emitted by the power plant, which started operations in 1967.
He grows corn, soy, wheat and barley and runs beef cattle. He's never had his soil tested for mercury. Nationwide, coal-fired power plants -- especially older plants operating with out-of-date or no pollution controls -- are the largest industrial source of soot and smog-forming air pollution, toxic mercury and carbon dioxide, thought to be a leading cause of global warming.

Mercury emitted from power plants falls to the ground and is washed or falls into rivers and lakes, where it accumulates in the bodies of fish and other aquatic animals. Human exposure occurs primarily through eating contaminated fish. Mercury has contaminated 10.2 mm acres of lakes, estuaries and wetlands and 415,000 miles of streams, rivers and coastline. That has resulted in advisories against eating fish caught in contaminated water bodies in 45 states, including a general advisory not to eat more than one meal a week of fish caught in Pennsylvania streams, rivers or lakes.
Eating mercury-contaminated fish damages the brains and nervous systems of children and can harm cardiovascular and immune systems in adults. Studies show one in 12 women of child-bearing age in the United States has mercury levels in her blood above what is considered safe for the developing foetus. That translates to more than 320,000 babies born every year who may be at risk of neurological problems due to mercury exposure.