WASHINGTON -- An Ohio company will pay $1.1 billion in fines and cleanup costs at four power plants in the second-largest federal settlement with an electric utility over air pollution.

The case, filed in 1999 against FirstEnergy Corp.'s W.H. Sammis plant in Stratton, Ohio, was the first involving dozens of Midwest plants to go to trial over accusations that the plants spewed dirty air that caused smog and health problems across the Northeast.

A federal judge in Columbus, Ohio, ruled in August 2003 after a three-week trial that Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy had violated the Clean Air Act by making physical changes at its coal-fired plant without upgrading pollution controls.

Yesterday's agreement, which involved the Environmental Protection Agency, the Justice Department and New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, completes the penalty phase of the case.

The agreement, which still must be approved by U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. in Columbus, would lead to an annual reduction of 212,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide -- one of the largest reductions ever in the emissions blamed for acid rain.

That represents about 80 percent of the pollutants coming out of the Sammis plant, which by 2012 must install pollution controls on all seven of its units, said Thomas V. Skinner, the EPA's acting assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance.

Additional reductions would be achieved by installing pollution control equipment at two other FirstEnergy plants: the R.E. Burger plant in Shadyside, Ohio, and the Eastlake plant in Eastlake, Ohio. Sulfur dioxide scrubbers will be updated at the company's Bruce Mansfield Plant in Shippingport, Pa.

"This builds on the significant progress we have been making to protect the environment while resolving uncertainty," FirstEnergy President and CEO Anthony Alexander said in a statement.

The settlement also includes $8.5 million in civil penalties, the second-highest ever. The highest civil penalty ever levied against an electric utility over air pollution was $9 million, lodged March 7 against Dynegy Inc. A case against Virginia Electric Power Co. was settled in 2003 for an estimated $1.2 billion total cost to achieve 237,000 tons in pollutant reductions.

The settlement also requires FirstEnergy to pay $25 million for environmental mitigation projects; $14.4 million for wind power projects in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York; $10 million for environmental projects in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut; $400,000 for a solar power project in Allegheny County, Pa.; and $215,000 for an environmental project at Ohio's Shenandoah National Park.