Pennsylvania Asked To Join Effort To Protect Clean Air Protections

(PHILLIPSBURG) –  Governor James E. McGreevey joined today with U.S. Senators Robert Torricelli and Jon Corzine and Environmental Commissioner Bradley Campbell for a canoe trip on the Delaware River and called upon Pennsylvania to join the bipartisan, multi-state effort to fight federal efforts to weaken and potentially dismantle the laws and regulations that protect our air quality and the health of our citizens.

“Pennsylvania, like New Jersey, is affected by air pollution emitted from power plants outside its borders,” said Governor McGreevey. “We need to work to help protect our states’ air quality against federal environmental rollbacks.”

The Martins Creek plant owned by PPL Generation and the Portland Generating Station owned by Reliant Energy are two relatively small but extremely dirty plants that emit nearly as much sulfur dioxide as all 48 of New Jersey's power plants and cogeneration plants put together.  Martins Creek and Portland are almost entirely responsible for Warren County's inability to meet federal air quality standards for sulfur dioxide.

"We know of several small clusters in the Warren County area where children have high incidents of asthma.  We can only speculate on other health effects that people are suffering that could surface in the years to come," Senator Torricelli said. "We cannot continue to allow energy companies to violate the law, pollute our air and harm our children.  We will do everything we can to stop the pollution."

"The toxic chemicals that western power plants produce drift eastward, jeopardizing New Jersey's air quality and the health of the people who live here,” said Senator Corzine. “What we need are state-of-the-art pollution controls that will serve to protect our region from air pollution. We need tough standards and regulations, not rollbacks.”

“Out-of-state pollution sources, including power plants on the other side of the Delaware from Warren County, contribute more than one-third of the pollution impairing New Jersey’s air quality,” added McGreevey.  “Without strong federal leadership and clean air regulations and the support of our neighbors, New Jersey cannot fully protect our air and the health of our citizens.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to eviscerate provisions of the Clean Air Act that would require older, dirtier power plants like Martin’s Creek and Portland to significantly reduce emissions by installing modern pollution controls.  As recent as Monday, July 22, 2002, EPA made another blatant move to sidestep its responsibility to implement and enforce the Clean Air Act.

For the first time, EPA has proposed allowing individual facilities to evade compliance with a Clean Air Act requirement designed to control and reduce harmful toxics - including mercury and arsenic - emitted from industries, ranging from power plants to brick producers to chemical

plants.  Federal clean air laws require EPA to develop a technology standard for each affected industry, requiring at a minimum the installment of the pollution control technologies that can best reduce the level of toxics released.  After facilities install the required toxic control technologies, they must later perform risk assessments to determine if even more controls are needed.

EPA has proposed a loophole to let many facilities avoid installing air toxic emissions controls. EPA's proposal would let individual facilities avoid reducing air toxics emissions based on a localized risk assessment.  This disregards cumulative impacts of all other air toxics emitters and uncertainties in what levels of air toxics are safe. The Clean Air Act is clear that risk assessments for major toxic emitters are needed in addition to, not in lieu of, toxic pollution controls.

"EPA's latest move to give industries that emit harmful toxic pollutants a pass on cleaning up their emissions not only undermines federal law, it represents a disregard for the health and safety of our most vulnerable and at risk communities," said Commissioner Campbell.

In addition, EPA has proposed a new program, Clear Skies, to replace existing provisions of the Clean Air Act designed specifically to control pollution from power plants. Under Clear Skies, plants like Martin’s Creek and Portland would be able to buy pollution credits, allowing them to continue emitting high levels of toxics, including mercury, and other health-threatening pollutants rather than install pollution controls to reduce emissions.  Under Clear Skies, local areas like Warren County would have no safeguards to protect themselves against dirty plants that could continue polluting at high levels by participating in the proposed pollution trading scheme.

“New Jersey just announced that 21 fish species found in New Jersey’s fresh waterbodies, including parts of the Delaware River, contain unsafe levels of mercury – too unsafe to eat,” added McGreevey.  “We know that a primary source of this mercury contamination in our fish is carried into the air from dirty power plants and dropped in our local waters.  These power plants must be controlled before they do anymore damage to our environment and further threaten the health of our families.”

The Governor and Senators responded quickly last month to EPA’s proposals to drastically weaken current New Source Review (NSR) rules, which, under the federal Clean Air Act, require existing power plants and utilities to install new pollution controls when making any physical or operation changes that result in a significant increase in emissions. 

The NSR rules were designed specifically to retire or force pollution controls on older plants like Martin’s Creek and Portland, which were built before the Clean Air Act was enacted.  EPA’s proposed NSR changes would allow these plants to modify their systems and increase emissions even further without ever installing pollution control equipment.

“New Jersey is blessed with a rich environment that provides many outdoor recreation activities for families to enjoy – like a canoe ride on the Delaware River,” said McGreevey.  “However, our ability to enjoy a day a outside, breathing fresh air is being threatened by federal attempts to weaken clean air protections.”