Agenda - 12-07-1999 - Info - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

„° ` 11 ah,1i~ yyV 5i`a ,~yy54444`J,~~z~`4~~.j~ ~, i 22a F From ~ • CONTINUED FROM •PAGE 1 A that researchers don't know how much of the. ozone problem can be blamed on power plants. And the federal government's air-pollution strategy, which prompted Hunt's clean-air plan in the first place, has been thrown into disarray by recent court decisions: "Our position on emission restrictions is that they should be based on good science, not on pout ical agendas," said Mike Hughes, a ~CP&L spokesman. Still, -the state is being pressed to move forward by a growing coalition of environmentalists con- cerned about mountain air, acid rainand urban smog. They vow to push Hunt for even tougher con- trols on coal-fired stations. Bob Bruck, director of envirori- rriental programs at N.C. State University, said that if the state fails to act, it has no .right to tell Tennessee and other states to stop sending its pollution'into the smog-choked North Carolina mountains.. "We've got some of the worst plants in the country in our back yard," he said. 06d plants p®19ut~ h~av6ly For three decades; CP&L's Roxboro coal-burning power plant has towered over rural Person County. The plant has brought many benefits here - CP&L pays more than a quarter of the coun- ty's property taxes and donates money to local charities and schools. The plant created a popu- lar dishing spot, Hyco Lake, when it dammed the Hyco River to ensure a water supply for its boil- ers. In the countryside north of Roxboro, transmission towers march with military precision through cow-dotted fields, carrying up to 3.2 million kilowatts of power in their drooping cables. They con- verge at the Roxboro plant, where four steam-driven turbines churn in a 25-story-high structure of steel, piping, wires and machinery. Behind the plant lies the fuel for that steam - a smoldering moun- tain ofcoal, left there by the 100-car trains that arrive every day from •mines in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. Dominating the whole scene are the four immense stacks. Two of them are 400 feet tall, the others 800 feet, or more than twice the height of the Statue of Liberty. They sprouted one at a time, in 1966, 1968, 1973. and 1980. Their tips are streaked with soot, but in autumn, they exhale a yellowish wispy trail that dissipates in the wind. If the plant were built today, what comes out of its stacks would be illegal. The 29-year-old Clean Air Act and subsequent amend- mentswould require the installa- tion of chemical anti-pollution units that break down the main ozone-forming pollutant - nitro- gen oxides -into less harmful components. Instead, the smoke from the burnt coal is merely cooled and cleared of soot before it puffs into the sky. That's because Congress allowed plants built before the mid-1980s to operate without state-of--the-art controls on the assumption that companies would soon replace the plants with clean- erpower. Instead, most of the plants across the country have contin- ued to operate. In 1996, coal-burn- ing provided 60 percent of the power consumed in North Carolina, and all 14 of the state's plants are exempt from the stiffer requirements of the amended Clean Air Act. Last year, the Roxboro plant alone pumped out 51,808 tons of smog-forming nitro- gen .oxides, the 10th-largest amount produced in the nation. Duke Power's Belews Creek plant located northeast of Winston- Salemranks third in the nation. A,s a result, North Carolina's industri- al nitrogen. oxide emissions cur- rentlyadd up to more than what's produced in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connec- ticut and Delaware combined, according to EPA statistics. Along with exhaust from cars, trucks, lawn mowers, bulldozers, factories and other sources, the power plant emissions can create ground-level ozone when they mix with hydrocarbon fumes and bake in the sunlight. Although coal-fired plants have been part of North Carolina's landscape for decades, chronic air pollution in growing cities and the Southern Appalachian mountains has sparked increasing concern about damage to health and the environment. Na. 2 it>I bad-aor days. In 1998, North. Carolina experi- enced unhealthy ozone levels on 73, days, second only to California; according to a survey by the U.S, Public Interest Research Group. State air officials say the state's good monitoring is the reason for the high ranking, but they also admit that urban air quality, which improved after the smoggy 1980s; has deteriorated in the late 1990x. The Triangle's dirty air has taken a toll on its residents' lungs; according to Dr. Wes Wallace, an emergency room physician at UNC Hospitals: Inhaling ozone can cause swelling and spasms in air tubes, making breathing a painful struggle. "Clearly on bad-air days, things get worse," Wallace said. "This.is a preventable problem." Aside from the human health effects, researchers have discov- ered that ozone also stunts the growth of crops and forests. In December 1998, faced with a potential federal crackdown on air pollution, Hunt offered his own two-step plan. The first part - tightening car emissions stan- dards and mandating the sale of low-sulfur gasoline -passed the General Assembly in July. The second part is to reduce nitrogen oxides released by the power plants to 0.25, pounds per million BTUs produced by 2005. The draft regulation will be pre- sented Wednesday to the Environ- mentalManagement Commission, the state's top environmental pol- icy-making panel. It gives Duke Power and CP&L two options - installing state-of--the-art controls at the fve largest power plants, or finding the equivalent reductions at all 14 stations. "These reductions, when com- bined with tougher controls on exhaust from cars and trucks, should help us resolve North