Despite years of failing to convince the Commonwealth of Virginia or the federal government to shutter Genon’s Potomac River Generating Station in Alexandria, the Sierra Club is pressuring D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray to file a special petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that would put the power plant on a fast track to permanent closure. That move would be extremely unwise, since the federal government itself is dependent on electricity generated at the plant and the Sierra Club has no realistic replacement. Previously owned by Mirant, the plant was shut down in 2005 after the D.C. Public Service Commission filed a pollution complaint. But an emergency order by the U.S. Department of Energy quickly got it back online — albeit running with just two of five generators. In 2006, the plant was allowed to operate at full capacity again.
In 2007, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., asked EPA and Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality to stop work on a $30 million smokestack project designed to disperse pollutants faster to lessen their effect on local residents. In a 2008 letter to the Alexandria Health Department, William Cibulas, director of the Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, stated that computer modeling “overestimated” residents’ exposure to pollutants and, as a result, “we cannot determine at this time if a public health hazard exists.”
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Back in 2005, nitrogen oxide released by the plant supposedly posed an unacceptable health risk. Then it was the ash generated by the use of trona, a mineral similar to baking soda, used to reduce emission acidity. Now the plant is under attack again for sulfur dioxide emissions — which have been reduced 80 percent since 2000. Despite such measurable progress, the Sierra Club won’t be happy until the plant is shut down for good and thousands of Washington region homes are without dependable supplies of electricity.
Last month, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals correctly ruled that Montgomery County’s $5/ton carbon tax — which only affects Mirant’s mid-Atlantic power plant in Dickerson — is really a “punitive fee” intended to punish Mirant for generating electricity needed to run local air conditioners, computers, Metro trains, big-screen TVs, and all the other accoutrements of modern life. Similar attacks on power plants by well-funded and organized Big Green enviros will continue. But with Pepco now considered the most hated company in America because of its too-frequent power outages, local residents should have no illusions about what daily life will be like if they succeed
