The debate over coal

June 11, 2010 Our Stories 2 Comments  E-mail This Post

Environmental groups have filed objections with the EPA to a proposed rule by Wisconsin’s DNR allowing power plants more leeway in how they meet federal nitrogen oxide standards. The outcome could have significant impact for people living near the state’s oldest, dirtiest power plants – like We Energies’ facility in the heart of Milwaukee.

We Energies has long had a coal-fired plant in the Menomonee River Valley just below the Marquette Interchange. The plant produces both electricity and steam for Milwaukee. Completed in 1969, it uses about 2,200 tons of coal per day and 110,800 gallons of Menomonee River water every minute for cooling before the water is sent back into the river.

The DNR in this case would calculate emissions on a “multi-source averaging” basis – meaning a company like WE Energies can average emissions of its older, dirtier plants with its newer, cleaner facilities to come up with an acceptable average. This would allow the valley plant to emit more pollution than what is normally allowed under the federal Clean Air Act.

a we energies coal plant

In a letter to the EPA office in Chicago, Katie Nekola, Energy Program Director for Clean Wisconsin and David Bender, attorney for the Sierra Club, say, “It is especially … objectionable that … multi-plant averaging will result in no post-combustion controls at WE Energies’ Valley Power Plant in the middle of urban Milwaukee … The Valley Power Plant should be required to reduce NOx emissions to the maximum degree possible since, of all of WE Energies’ coal units … (it) presents serious environmental justice issues.”

Minority and low-income groups make up a significant portion of those who live close to the Valley plant.

The DNR response

The Clean Air Act requires that ongoing emission reductions by all “reasonably available control technology” be applied to “particular sources” rather than the DNR’s proposed averaging of emissions across a number of power plants in southeastern Wisconsin. Furthermore, argue Clean Wisconsin and the Sierra Club, greater air pollution reductions than the DNR is asking for are achievable with available technology. While the DNR wants a 61 percent reduction in NOx emissions, the environmental groups note that a 90 percent reduction is now being met at many power plants across the nation.

In 2003, Clean Wisconsin and the Sierra Club filed suit against an agreement between the Bush administration’s EPA and WE Energies saying it didn’t do enough to control pollution at some of WE Energies’ power plants, including the Valley facility. U.S. District Judge Charles Clevert agreed to hear arguments. But in 2007, Clevert ruled the agreement was fair and offered “considerable benefits to human health and the environment.” Because the total amount of pollution from all of WE Energies’ power plants would be reduced, the Valley plant was not specifically required to be equipped with the most modern and effective forms of pollution control. At the time, however, WE Energies said anti-pollution measures had been undertaken at the plant and more would be done in the future.

Nekola contends the Valley plant is still “a huge problem.”  In 2007, the plant emitted 3,270 tons of nitrogen oxides, 386 tons of particulates and 6,848 tons of sulfur dioxide, according to Nekola. Mercury emissions, the most toxic of coal-generated pollution, increased 21 percent at the Valley power plant from 2007 to 2008, according to a March 2010 report by the Environmental Integrity Project.

But Irissol Arce of WE Energies points to progress at the plant: Since 2007, pollution control equipment installed at the Valley plant has reduced nitrogen oxides by 44 percent. Sulfur dioxide has been cut by 21.5 percent, while particulates have dropped 77 percent and mercury emissions have been reduced by 16 percent, he notes. At least in the short term, the plant has also used less coal:  25 percent less in 2009 compared to 2007.

coal at a we energies coal plant (photos courtesy of America's Power)

Asked if WE Energies plans to add more pollution-control technology to the Valley plant, Brian Manthey of WE Energies replied by email, “We do not currently have an application with the (Public Service Commission) to add further emission control equipment to the plant. We continually assess the status of all of our plants based on the need for additional controls due to current and potential future regulations.”

Though Wisconsin’s PSC is now looking into the possible retiring of old coal plants due to an excess of power generation in Wisconsin, the Valley plant is not likely to be high on that list. The reason is steam. There are, according to Arce, about 360 downtown customers dependent on the steam power the plant generates. Arce says a 2006 study by WE Energies estimated that converting the plant to natural gas would cost the 360 steam customers a combined total of $1.5 billion over the next 20 years.

Death by coal?

Environmentalists argue that this cost must be balanced by the impact on public health. Research data collected by the Clean Air Task Force puts the Milwaukee metropolitan area in the top 50 metro areas in the nation for the highest number of health issues from power plant pollution. It estimates that 143 people in our urban area will die this year as a direct result of power plant emissions. Power plants in southeastern Wisconsin will cause about 255 heart attacks, 15 deaths by lung cancer and 3,533 asthma attacks of which 203 will require an emergency room visit.

Other research by the Harvard School of Public Health has shown the threat for public harm is greatest for those who live closest to coal-fired power plants.

Seeking cleaner air and environmental justice, some in Chicago have formed the Chicago Clean Power Coalition to address the pollution from two old, highly polluting coal plants on Chicago’s West Side.

In April, Chicago Ald. Joe Moore announced he was sponsoring a “Clean Power Ordinance” that would require the Fisk and Crawford coal-fired plants, both built, as was the Valley plant, before Clean Air Act regulations took effect, to reduce particulates by 90% in two years and significantly reduce carbon dioxide in four years. The ordinance so far has nine co-sponsors on the City Council and 38 non-profit and business “coalition partners.”

A spokesman for Midwest Generation, owner of Fisk and Crawford, told the Associated Press the ordinance is “essentially intended to force the closure of two power plants that help maintain a reliable supply of electricity.”

Ald. Moore told the press, “When this legislation passes, Chicago will do what no other large city in America has had the guts to do: Clean up a dirty power plant within its jurisdiction and thus protect the health and welfare of its residents.”

Nekola says she knows of no attempt by local governmental officials in Milwaukee to introduce a similar ordinance.