Utilities say new EPA rules will be costly

By Bill Bell Jr. and Terry Hillig Copyright 1998 St. Louis Post-Dispatch September 25, 1998

Federal air regulators announced tighter controls on smog-producing chemicals on Thursday in 22 states stretching from Missouri and Illinois to Maine.

This is the first time the Environmental Protection Agency has cracked down on pollution that flows eastwardly across the continent. The EPA action could be an expensive proposition for coal-burning power plants in the bistate area.

Susan Gallagher, a spokeswoman for AmerenUE, said the new rules would mean costly improvements to nine of the company's 14 power plants. Gallagher said it was too soon to estimate if or how those costs might trickle down to ratepayers.

"It will cost billions," she said.

Officials at the EPA put the total cost of the new controls at $ 17 billion over the next decade.

The rules target nitrogen oxide - a chemical that produces smog when combined with other compounds and cooked by the sun.

EPA Administrator Carol Browner said the changes may provide cleaner air for 138 million Americans.

In the past, the EPA has threatened to withhold federal highway funds from states that fail to reduce pollution. But Missouri officials are not yet clear what would happen to them in this case.

Ken Midkiff, director of the Sierra Club of Missouri, said chemicals from coal-burning plants in Missouri, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan have blown across country, causing many Eastern states to miss federal ozone standards.

Midkiff said his organization supports the new standards even though they will only inadvertently improve the air in St. Louis and Missouri.

Mark Bishop, a spokesman for the American Lung Association of Eastern Missouri, said the new rules represented a major shift in EPA policy.

The agency is starting to look at regional air problems rather than individual sources. Bishop agreed the effect on smog here would be limited.

"We support this. I'm not jumping up and down," he said.

Following Thursday's announcement, individual states will have a year to figure out how best to reach the emission-reduction goals, said Wayne Leidwanger, chief of air planning and development for the EPA in Kansas City, Kan. The controls on smokestacks are supposed to be in place by 2007.

Leidwanger said the EPA has estimated that it will cost $ 1,500 to reduce each ton of emissions. The new rules call for a total reduction of 1.1 million tons annually by 2003. Reductions in Missouri may have to reach 35 percent.

In a press release, AmerenUE said the new rules would require the company to install special equipment that would spray ammonia on the nitrogen oxide as it comes up the smoke stack.

The equipment would then convert the chemicals into nitrogen and oxygen, said Mike Menne, an air-quality expert at AmerenUE. The company recycles 50 percent of its ash into building blocks and road-building projects. That recycling may now be reduced, Menne said, because of the ammonia smell.

Gallagher, of AmerenUE, said her company has already spent $ 40 million since 1990 in efforts to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 50 percent.

An Illinois Power Co. official reacted to the new rules with dismay. Jene Robinson, the company's manager of environmental resources, said Illinois Power has made substantial investments to meet emission standards effective in 2000.

He said the requirements announced Thursday preclude an opportunity to assess the effect of the 2000 standards on air quality.

Robinson said the company and Midwestern governors wanted a longer, phased schedule for reducing emissions.

"Now, we're going to have to install more nitrogen oxide abatement equipment than we planned and sooner than we planned," he said.

Robinson said the rules apparently do not address the chief source of urban air pollution - vehicle emissions.

Controls on those emissions reduce pollution in the major urban areas, not at power plants that may be miles away, he said.

"Requiring further improvements on such a tight schedule threatens the availability of power, especially in the Midwest and Southeast," Robinson said.

The new rules are expected to affect Illinois Power Co.'s five coal-fired power plants, including two in the Metro East area at Wood River and Baldwin.

Dennis McMurray, spokesman for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, said it was too early to estimate the cost of the rules for Illinois businesses. He said they would affect large industrial boilers as well as power plants.

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