Cheswick power plant gets OK to run during repairs
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GenOn Energy Inc., the new name of the company that owns the Cheswick coal-fired power plant, has been granted permission to temporarily operate that facility while its new pollution controls are turned off.
According to a Dec. 7 GenOn letter to the Allegheny County Health Department, the emissions control equipment installed this summer at the 637-megawatt power plant is already so severely corroded it can't be used.
The plant has been shut down since October, when during scheduled maintenance, the company discovered the trouble with the equipment.
In response to a power company request, the Health Department agreed last Thursday to allow GenOn to start up the power plant without the flue gas desulfurization equipment, commonly called a "scrubber," and emit pollutants at pre-scrubber levels. That approval to operate expires March 31.
The approval, which was not announced by the Health Department, will allow the Houston, Texas,-based power company to emit sulfur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, airborne particles and hazardous air pollutants at levels allowed prior to installation of the scrubber.
GenOn's Cheswick coal-fired power plant, which, despite its name, is located in Springdale Borough, has been operating since 1970. In 2008 it emitted 30,300 tons of sulfur dioxide, 4,100 tons of nitrogen oxides, more than 400 tons of airborne particulates, and another 400 tons of gases that turn into particles as they cool, according to the Allegheny County Health Department's Emissions Inventory Report.
The smokestack scrubber, which began operating in June, was supposed to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxides, hydrochloric acid and airborne particles by up to 98 percent, according to the Allegheny County Health Department.
GenOn said it discovered the problem when it shut down the Cheswick plant in mid-October for scheduled maintenance and reviewed operation of the scrubber system because of reports that the equipment had corrosion problems at other power plants.
First Published December 17, 2010 12:00 am
