EPA: Water quality OK at 20 wells in Pa. gas town
www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-04/D9TVLHPG0.htm
DIMOCK, Pa.
Testing at 20 more water wells in a northeastern Pennsylvania community at the center of a debate over the safety of natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale shows no dangerous levels of contamination, according to a report issued Friday by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA had already tested 11 wells in Dimock, showing the presence of sodium, methane, chromium or bacteria in six of the wells before the results of the latest round of testing.
Three of the newly-tested wells showed methane while one showed barium well above the EPA’s maximum level, but a treatment system installed in the well is removing the substance, an EPA spokesman said.
Featured in the documentary “Gasland,” the Susquehanna County village of Dimock has been at the center of a fierce debate over drilling, in particular the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The process involves injecting a mixture of water and chemicals deep underground to free trapped natural gas so it can be brought to the surface.
State environmental regulators previously determined that Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. contaminated the aquifer underneath homes along Carter Road in Dimock with explosive levels of methane gas, although they later determined the company had met its obligation to provide safe drinking water to residents.
The EPA is still providing drinking water to three homes where prior tests showed contamination. A second round of tests is under way, regulators said.
A group of Dimock residents suing Cabot assert their water is also polluted with drilling chemicals, while others say that the water is clean and the plaintiffs are exaggerating problems with their wells to help their lawsuit.
A Cabot spokesman said in a statement Friday that the “data confirms the earlier EPA finding that levels of contaminants found do not possess a threat to human health and the environment.”
“Importantly, the EPA again did not indicate that those contaminants that were detected bore any relationship to oil and gas development in the Dimock area, particularly given the fact that any contaminants are more likely indicative of naturally-occurring background levels or other unrelated activities,” the statement said.
EPA faces suit from 11 groups over coal ash
www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/health/epa-faces-suit-from-11-groups-over-coal-ash-630121/
April 6, 2012 12:00 am
By Don Hopey / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Eleven environmental organizations are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force it to better regulate toxic coal ash and citing recent groundwater contamination at 29 coal ash dump sites in 16 states, including two in Western Pennsylvania.
According to the EPA’s own data, coal ash has caused contamination of groundwater at coal-fired power plants in Homer City, Indiana County, and near New Castle, Lawrence County.
Earthjustice, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the other groups Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said in a release that the EPA hasn’t updated coal ash disposal and control regulations in more than 30 years and that it continues to delay new rules despite recent evidence of “leaking waste ponds, poisoned groundwater supplies and threats to public health.”
Coal ash is produced mainly by coal-fired power plants and contains a mixture of toxic chemicals and compounds, Earthjustice said, including arsenic, lead, hexavalent chromium, manganese, mercury, selenium and cadmium.
The EPA data, based on a 2010 questionnaire sent to 700 fossil- and nuclear-fueled power plants to asses water discharges, show ash from GenOn’s 60-year-old, 330-megawatt New Castle power plant in West Pittsburg, Lawrence County, has contaminated groundwater with arsenic.
The 1,884-megawatt Homer City power plant operated by Midwest Generation EME LLC and owned by General Electric, uses 19 ponds or landfills to dispose of its ash and, according to the EPA, has contaminated groundwater with iron, lead, manganese and sulfate.
GenOn, which announced in March it will close the New Castle power plant in April 2015, did not return calls requesting comment. Midwest Generation EME, operator of the 43-year-old power plant 50 miles east of Pittsburgh, also did not return calls.
The environmental groups’ lawsuit seeks an order to force the EPA to set deadlines for review and revision of coal ash regulations, as well as changes to tests done to determine if the waste is hazardous under federal law.
“The numbers of coal ash ponds and landfills that are contaminating water supplies continues to grow, yet nearby communities still do not have effective federal protection,” said Lisa Evans, an Earthjustice attorney.
Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project and a former EPA regulator, said the dumping of toxic coal ash is on the rise. In 2010, he said, toxic heavy metals in power plant ash disposal topped 113 million pounds, a nearly 10 percent increase from 2009.
In September 2010, the EPA held public hearings in Pittsburgh and six other cities across the nation on a proposal to federally regulate coal ash for the first time, a proposal that the coal and power industries opposed. Industry leaders at the hearing said federal regulation would be costly, hurt the industry, cost jobs and increase electric rates.
Mr. Schaeffer said EPA’s proposed standards for safe disposal, including a plan to close unsafe ash ponds within five years, “have gone nowhere.”
The nation’s power plants produce approximately 150 million tons of ash a year, about 20 tons of that in Pennsylvania.
Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
First Published 2012-04-06
First 11 Dimock homes sampled by EPA show no health concerns
citizensvoice.com/news/first-11-dimock-homes-sampled-by-epa-show-no-health-concerns-1.1286406#axzz1pCMrG0Lu
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: March 16, 2012
The first 11 Dimock Township water supplies tested by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not reveal levels of contamination that could present a health concern, but the samples indicated the presence of arsenic and other compounds that will require further tests at some homes, the agency said Thursday.
Agency officials hand delivered test results to residents whose wells were sampled during the week of Jan. 23 and will meet again with the families individually to review the results and answer questions.
The first test results reported Thursday represent about a sixth of the data collected by the EPA over weeks of sampling in a nine-square-mile area of Dimock where the agency is investigating the potential impact of nearby natural gas drilling on water supplies.
In a statement Thursday, the EPA said samples from six of the 11 homes showed concentrations of sodium, methane, chromium or bacteria, but all were within the safe range for drinking water. The sampling results also identified arsenic in two homes’ water supplies, both of which are being sampled again by the agency.
“Although the (arsenic) levels meet drinking water standards, we will resample to better characterize the water quality of these wells,” EPA spokesman Roy Seneca said in the statement.
Three of the 11 homes tested during the first week of sampling are receiving replacement water deliveries from the EPA. Those deliveries will continue “while we perform additional sampling to ensure that the drinking water quality at these homes remains consistent and acceptable for use over time,” Seneca said.
The agency began testing about 60 water wells in January after the EPA’s review of past tests by the state and other groups raised concerns about contamination from Marcellus Shale drilling.
Seneca said that the agency will share more test results with Dimock homeowners “as further quality assured data becomes available for the remaining homes.”
The statement released by the EPA did not include a complete list of the compounds detected in the first 11 water supplies.
In the test results given to the families, the EPA highlighted compounds found at concentrations that exceeded what the agency described as “trigger levels” based on risk-based screening levels or the standards for public drinking water supplies.
Although all of the results were reviewed by a toxicologist before they were presented to residents, compounds above a trigger level were reviewed sooner by toxicologists and processed quicker by the agency “should we need to take an immediate action to provide water,” Seneca said.
“EPA conducted those reviews and found no health concerns,” he said.
Dimock resident Scott Ely said his test results showed five compounds above their trigger levels, including arsenic, chromium, lithium, sodium and fluoride. The arsenic level in his well water, 7.6 micrograms per liter, was below the federal drinking water standard of 10 micrograms per liter but above the 3 micrograms per liter chronic drinking water screening level for children established by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Ely, who has three small children in his home, said the results reveal “nothing surprising: my water is contaminated.”
The number of compounds in his water well that triggered an expedited toxicological review “just confirms that we have issues,” he said.
The natural gas industry said that the results confirm that their operations have not affected drinking water.
George Stark, a spokesman for Cabot Oil and Gas Corp., the firm drilling extensively in the township, said the company is “pleased that data released by EPA today on sampling of water in Dimock confirmed earlier findings that Dimock drinking water meets all regulatory standards.”
He said that the company will continue to work with the EPA as well as state and local regulators to address concerns in Dimock, but he chided federal regulators for intervening in the case.
“We hope that lessons learned from EPA’s experience in Dimock will result in the agency improving cooperation with all stakeholders and to establish a firmer basis for agency decision making in the future,” he said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
EPA’s Dimock tests divisive
www.timesleader.com/news/EPA_rsquo_s_Dimock_tests_divisive_03-06-2012.html
Mar 6, 2012
Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. and its supporters are at odds with the federal agency.
DIMOCK — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s testing of scores of water wells will give residents of this small Suquehanna County village a snapshot of the aquifer they rely on for drinking, cooking and bathing.
The first EPA test results, expected this week, are certain to provide fodder for both sides of a raging 3-year-old debate over unconventional natural gas drilling and its impacts on Dimock, a rural crossroads that starred in the Emmy Award-winning documentary “Gasland.”
A handful of residents are suing Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., saying the Houston-based driller contaminated their wells with potentially explosive methane gas and with drilling chemicals. Many other residents of Dimock assert the water is clean, and that the plaintiffs are exaggerating problems with their wells to help their lawsuit.
In a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, a pro-drilling group called Enough is Enough contends the agency’s “rogue” Philadelphia field office has allowed itself to be a pawn of trial lawyers seeking a big payout from Cabot. More than 300 people signed it. “Dimock Proud” signs dot lawns throughout the village in Susquehanna County, one of the most intensively drilled regions of the Marcellus Shale gas field.
The same group recently launched a website aimed at dispelling what it contends is the myth that Dimock’s aquifer is contaminated.
Residents who have been clamoring for federal intervention say the attacks on the EPA — which have come not only from their neighbors but from Cabot and Pennsylvania’s environmental chief — are groundless.
“Since the EPA’s investigation began, Cabot and (state regulators) have undertaken a shameless public campaign against the EPA’s attempt to rescue the victims who are now without potable water and prevent their exposure to hazardous constituents now present in the aquifer,” one of their lawyers, Tate Kunkle, wrote recently.
Cabot spokesman George Stark said the company opposed the EPA testing because it creates a false impression about Dimock.
“It’s the notion that there must be something wrong there in order for the EPA to either do testing or to deliver water. I think it causes more concern, more mistrust, more misinformation about the industry overall,” he said.
In addition to testing scores of water wells, the EPA is paying to deliver fresh water to four homes where the agency cited worrisome levels of manganese, sodium and cancer-causing arsenic.
Brian Oram, an independent geologist and water consultant from Northeastern Pennsylvania, said he is puzzled by the agency’s rationale for being in Dimock, since the substances that EPA said it’s most concerned about are naturally occurring and commonly found in the regional groundwater.
Nevertheless, Oram supports the EPA testing because it will provide water quality data the parties can trust, and against which future drilling can be measured.
Cabot asserts the high methane levels that its own testing has consistently found in the Dimock water wells are naturally occurring and easily remediated.
But state regulators have cited “overwhelming evidence,” including chemical fingerprinting, that linked the methane in Dimock’s water supply to improperly cemented gas wells drilled by Cabot.
First sampling completed in national fracking study
citizensvoice.com/news/first-sampling-completed-in-national-fracking-study-1.1278041#axzz1nnFPjLzE
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: February 28, 2012
The first round of sampling at five case study sites has been completed in a landmark federal study of the potential impacts of oil and gas extraction on water supplies, the Environmental Protection Agency’s study coordinator said Monday.
Results from those tests, which include drinking water and streams sampled between July and November 2011 in Susquehanna and Bradford counties, will be reported in a draft of the study expected to be released in December.
The multiyear, congressionally mandated study is investigating a possible link between water contamination and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the process of injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into underground rock formations to crack the rock and release the oil or gas trapped there.
The EPA is reviewing the full life cycle of the process, from the moment water for fracking is withdrawn from waterways through the mixing of chemicals and the fracturing of wells to the disposal of the wastewater that returns to the surface.
During an update on the study’s progress on Monday, study coordinator Jeanne Briskin said test results from the five case study sites – including Washington County, Pa., and drilling-heavy areas of Colorado, Texas and North Dakota, as well as Bradford and Susquehanna counties – are being audited for accuracy now and another round of sampling is planned between March and July.
“We don’t assume from the beginning that there is any impact of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources,” Briskin said. “We are trying to investigate, where there has been something going on with somebody’s drinking water, what is the cause?”
EPA researchers also have received information from nine randomly selected oil and gas companies about well construction techniques and integrity testing, the chemicals used in fracking their wells and other data.
The agency is reviewing the treatment and disposal of the salt- and metals-laden waste fluid that returns from wells after fracking, including modeling the effects on rivers and downstream drinking water intakes if the wastewater is run through treatment plants that discharge to waterways.
In one subset of the study, the agency is looking at how different forms of wastewater treatment remove, concentrate or leave untouched the chemicals in the gas waste.
The study is expected to be completed in two phases, with the first published draft results released in December of this year and the second at the end of 2014.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Cabot raises new questions about EPA data in Dimock
citizensvoice.com/news/cabot-raises-new-questions-about-epa-data-in-dimock-1.1265510#axzz1lEh9vXRN
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: February 1, 2012
Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. sharply criticized federal regulators’ rationale for investigating a potential link between the company’s natural gas operations and contamination in Dimock Township water supplies on Tuesday, saying the government selectively cited or misinterpreted past water quality data to justify its probe.
The statement was Cabot’s fifth in less than two weeks seeking to raise doubts about an ongoing investigation renewed in December by the Environmental Protection Agency that involves widespread water sampling in the Susquehanna County township where Cabot has drilled dozens of Marcellus Shale natural gas wells.
The EPA is providing replacement drinking water supplies to four homes where water tests taken by Cabot, the state and others raised health concerns the agency said range from “potential” to “imminent and substantial” threats. It is also performing comprehensive water tests on as many as 66 wells in a 9-square-mile area of Dimock.
In its statement Tuesday, Cabot said the data shows there are “no health concerns with the water wells.” Instead, the agency’s decision to deliver water was based on data points the EPA selected over years of Cabot sampling, the company said, “without adequate knowledge or consideration of where or why the samples were collected, when they were taken, or the naturally occurring background levels for those substances throughout the Susquehanna County area.”
“It appears that EPA selectively chose data on substances it was concerned about in order to reach a result it had predetermined,” it said.
In its statement and through a spokesman, Cabot said the data highlighted by the EPA to justify its investigation is often old, “cherry-picked” to ignore more representative data, mistakenly attributed to the wrong sources or explained by natural conditions.
For example, the driller said the evidence EPA highlighted to show high arsenic levels in one water well was actually “a sample of the local public water supply that is provided to the town of Montrose by Pennsylvania American Water” – a contention Pennsylvania American Water refuted Tuesday with test data from the Montrose public water supply.
“We test for arsenic in all of our water systems,” Pennsylvania American Water spokeswoman Susan Turcmanovich said. “If there was any detection of arsenic at any level, it would be reported in the water quality report” sent to all of its customers and posted online. The reports for 2010 and 2011 show arsenic was not detected at any level, she said.
Cabot said a high sodium level cited by the EPA was found in a sample that was taken after the water ran through a softener, which raised the sodium by three to four times the level found straight from the water well.
It also said arsenic and manganese – two of the contaminants found at elevated levels and flagged by the EPA – are naturally occurring and “not associated with natural gas drilling.”
Both compounds are often found in the large quantities of wastewater that flow back from Marcellus Shale wells after hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, but Cabot spokesman George Stark said the company does not use either compound in its operations and there is “no natural pathway” underground for the wastewater to reach aquifers.
The EPA did not issue a direct response to Cabot’s newest statement. Instead, it released a letter from an assistant administrator and regional administrator sent Tuesday in response to an earlier letter from Cabot CEO Dan Dinges to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson raising concerns about the investigation.
“We did not take this step lightly but felt compelled to intervene when we became aware of monitoring data, developed largely by Cabot, indicating the presence of several hazardous substances in drinking water samples, including some at levels of health concern,” wrote Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, and Region 3 Administrator Shawn M. Garvin.
“Because the data available was incomplete and of uncertain quality, we determined that additional monitoring was prudent.”
The agency began providing replacement water only after it asked Cabot to deliver water and the company refused, they wrote.
Under criticism from both Cabot and Pennsylvania regulators for their actions, the administrators also emphasized the legal and scientific basis for their actions, which they called complementary with the state’s role. The Superfund law, which the EPA said authorizes its Dimock investigation, has allowed the agency to undertake similar water deliveries and investigations at “hundreds of sites across the country … when the presence of hazardous substances posed a potential risk to drinking water.” they wrote.
“States have important frontÂline responsibilities in permitting natural gas extraction, and we respect and support their efforts,” they wrote. “But EPA likewise has important oversight responsibilities and acts as a critical backstop when public health or the environment may be at risk.”
llegere@timesshamrock.com
EPA Responds to Cabot Oil
www.wnep.com/wnep-susq-epa-responds-to-cabot-oil-20120127,0,6032822.story
January 27, 2012
There is now a response to a response.
Two days ago Cabot Oil and Gas criticized the federal government’s deliveries of fresh water and its testing of several wells in Susquehanna County.
Now the EPA responds to Cabot.
One week ago the Environmental Protection Agency started delivering the water to a handful of homes suspected of having their wells contaminated by Cabot’s natural gas drilling in the Dimock area.
Cabot called the move a “political agenda hostile to shale gas development.”
Friday the EPA responded by saying, “It is sampling and providing water as a direct result of requests from Dimock residents. Our priority is the health of the people there, and our actions are guided entirely by science and the law.”
In Dimock, EPA testing draws mixed reaction
citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/in-dimock-epa-testing-draws-mixed-reaction-1.1263801#axzz1klDNn16y
By Laura Legere
Staff Writer
Published: January 28, 2012
DIMOCK TWP. – Two teams of scientists sampling well water from four homes a day are producing a picture of the aquifer under this Susquehanna County town that will help define the impact of natural gas drilling on drinking water.
The water captured in vials and packed in coolers by scientists and contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency since Jan. 23 is the heart of an investigation spurred by concerns that Cabot Oil and Gas Corp.’s Marcellus Shale drilling and hydraulic fracturing tainted water wells.
In a divided village where gas drilling is as earnestly embraced as it is criticized, the controversy over the EPA’s fieldwork started before the sampling did. Test results are at least five weeks away.
The study has provoked strong criticism from the industry and its local supporters who accuse the EPA of meddling in what they consider a settled matter or a spectacle conjured by lawyers.
At the same time, the study has earned the grateful support of families, many of whom are suing Cabot, who have used their water warily or not at all since methane tied to drilling first intruded in 2008.
State officials determined faulty Cabot gas wells allowed methane to seep into 18 Dimock water supplies in 2009, but Cabot water tests from last fall raised federal regulators’ concern about the potential health threats posed by other contaminants in the water.
The contaminants – some of which are naturally occurring but all of which are associated with natural gas drilling, the EPA said – include arsenic, barium, the plasticizer commonly called DEHP, glycol compounds, manganese, phenol and sodium.
“If we see an immediate threat to public health, we will not hesitate to take steps under the law to protect Americans whose health may be at risk,” EPA spokeswoman Terri White said.
Residents who support Cabot’s operations sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson this week calling for her to “rein in” the “rogue regional office” in Philadelphia that is leading the investigation based on what they said were “baseless claims” and “hyped-up allegations” of pollutants that occur naturally in the region.
The group, Enough is Enough, created a campaign called “Dimock Proud” with yard signs, a petition drive and a logo: “Where the water IS clean and the people are friendly.”
The petition to Jackson was bundled with an earlier petition signed by more than 400 Susquehanna County residents and sent to the state to ask for Cabot to be able to resume drilling in a 9-square-mile section of Dimock – where EPA is now testing – that has been off limits to the driller since 2010. The moratorium has continued because the state has not determined that the company’s wells have stopped leaking methane.
“The Philadelphia Regional Office’s action in enabling this litigation threatens our livelihoods and is destroying our community reputation,” the residents wrote to Jackson. “These actions are an assault on our property rights and basic freedoms.”
Cabot CEO Dan Dinges cited President Barack Obama’s support for domestic natural gas in his State of the Union address when he also wrote to Jackson this week. Her agency’s actions in Dimock “appear to undercut the President’s stated commitment to this important resource,” Dinges wrote.
In another statement released this week, the company said it “is concerned that this recent action may be more of an attempt to advance a political agenda hostile to shale gas development rather than a principled effort to address environmental concerns in the area.”
The industry group Energy in Depth posted historical state and federal data on its website showing some of the pollutants that triggered the EPA investigation – manganese and arsenic – occur in the geological formation that is used for groundwater in Dimock. It cited a 2006 U.S. Geological Survey study that found arsenic in 18 of 143 domestic water wells it sampled in Northeast Pennsylvania, although none of the samples taken in Susquehanna or Wyoming counties detected the compound.
The arsenic level that triggered the EPA to truck water to one home in Dimock was nearly four times the federal standard.
The EPA rebuffed Cabot’s criticism this week, saying its actions “are guided entirely by science and the law.”
“We are providing water to a handful of households because data developed by Cabot itself provides evidence that they are being exposed to hazardous substances at levels of health concern,” the agency said. “We are conducting monitoring as a prudent step to investigate these concerns and develop a sound scientific basis for assessing the need for further action.”
While Obama’s address made clear his support for domestic natural gas extraction, the agency added, “he also affirmed our commitment to ‘developing this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.’”
Despite some residents’ skepticism of the EPA’s actions, the agency has received permission from 55 of the 66 Dimock homes it approached to conduct sampling, spokesman Roy Seneca said Friday. The EPA has not received a final response from 11 of the 66 homes. It’s initial goal was to take samples from about 61 homes.
“I’m thrilled the EPA is here,” resident Victoria Switzer said Friday as five scientists wearing blue gloves huddled on a mound of melting snow in her backyard where her well water trickled from a spigot.
If the test comes back clear, she said, “I’ll be very relieved that our water is safe to use and we can go on living in our home.”
The water sampling will also provide key data for the future, she said.
“I’m considering it baseline testing for the next wave when Cabot roars back in here.”
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Midwest utility to shut coal-burning power plants
www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/26/2610545/midwest-utility-to-shut-coal-burning.html
By BOB DOWNING
Thursday, 01.26.12
Akron Beacon Journal
AKRON, Ohio — FirstEnergy Corp. on Thursday said it will retire six coal-fired power plants, including four in Ohio, because of stricter federal anti-pollution rules.
The six older and dirtier plants will be closed by Sept. 1.
“It was a tough decision,” said Charles D. Lasky, vice president of fossil fleet operations for FirstEnergy Generation Corp.
FirstEnergy will be among the first American utilities to close aging, polluting power plants after tighter federal clean-air rules were finalized last month.
FirstEnergy had been keeping a close eye on proposed federal rules on mercury, heavy metals and air toxics from coal-burning power plants for years, Lasky said.
The new rules provided FirstEnergy with “sufficient certainty” to proceed with the closings, he said.
The federal mandate that improvements be completed within three years was a factor in the decision to retire the six plants, which represent 12 percent of the utility’s generation capacity, he said.
The decision affects 529 workers who will be eligible for severance benefits, the Akron-based utility said.
It indicated that the number of affected workers might be less because some might be considered for other openings within the company and because of a new retirement benefit being offered to workers 55 and older.
About one-third of those 529 workers are eligible for retirement. The utility has about 100 openings in its fossil fuel division, officials said.
The plants to be closed are:
-Bay Shore Plant, Boilers 2-4, in Oregon, Ohio, outside Toledo. One boiler with anti-pollution equipment will remain open.
-Eastlake Plant with five boilers, Eastlake.
-Ashtabula Plant, Ashtabula.
-Lake Shore Plant, Cleveland.
-Armstrong Power Station, Adrian, Pa.
-R. Paul Smith Power Station, Williamsport, Md.
The Eastlake plant is the largest, capable of producing 1,233 megawatts; the Williamsport plant is the smallest at 116 megawatts.
The average age of the six plants is 55 years, Lasky said.
The closings were triggered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new Mercury and Air Toxic Standards (MATS), which were finalized Dec. 21.
Reducing emissions of mercury, heavy metals and airborne toxics from coal-burning power plants will protect people’s health, the EPA said.
Installing anti-pollution equipment on small, old power plants was not economically feasible, FirstEnergy concluded.
Lasky declined to say how much it would have cost FirstEnergy to equip the plants with bag houses, activated carbon filters and lime or sorbent injection systems to meet the new federal rules.
FirstEnergy saw no advantage to waiting to see whether legal challenges might overturn the new rules, said Ray Evans, executive director of environmental for FirstEnergy Services.
In some cases, there is not enough land around the old plants to install anti-pollution equipment, he said.