Sierra Club opposing Clearfield County power plant
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The Sierra Club has petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block a state operating permit for GenOn Energy Inc.'s Shawville power plant in Clearfield County because it says the permit's provisions won't protect human health.
According to Sierra Club, the state Department of Environmental Protection's November draft permit for the 626-megawatt power plant lacks adequate emissions monitoring provisions, doesn't include a compliance schedule to remedy significant, ongoing Clean Air Act violations and fails to ensure that emissions won't continue to violate new, tighter pollution standards.
The Sierra Club sent a nine-page letter to the DEP in January detailing the draft permit's shortcomings but received no response, said Zachary Fabish, a Sierra Club attorney. Monday was the final day of a 60-day window to petition the EPA to intervene on the permit.
"We know there are serious problems with this draft permit, and the EPA needs to step in and tell the DEP to make it right," Mr. Fabish said. "If the EPA agrees with us and sees serious problems, it will have to address it."
Such Clean Air Act Title V petitions are relatively rare, but the Sierra Club petition filed Monday is the second filed against a power plant in Western Pennsylvania in the last month. On Jan. 28, Citizen's for Pennsylvania's Future and the Group Against Smog and Pollution filed a petition asking the EPA to review an operating permit issued by the Allegheny County Health Department to GenOn's Cheswick coal-fired power plant in Springdale, claiming the permit doesn't include provisions requiring operation of a flue gas desulphurization system or monitoring of such a system.
"Most petitions under the Clean Air Act are about monitoring issues," said Kathleen Cox, associate director of the Office of Permits and Air Toxics. "A state or agency has a responsibility to respond to monitoring questions, and to the extent that Pennsylvania failed to do that, that will be addressed in our decision."
The EPA has 60 days to either grant or deny the petitions.
While petitions filed by citizen or environmental groups seeking EPA intervention are not common, lawsuits filed by such groups to force power plants to reduce smokestack emissions and improve air quality have had success. Two examples of such successes include a 2005 lawsuit that PennFuture filed against Allegheny Energy to reduce emissions at the Hatfield's Ferry power plant in eastern Greene County and a 2007 citizen lawsuit against FirstEnergy's Bruce Mansfield power plant in Shippingport, Beaver County.
First Published February 15, 2011 12:00 am
