Film focuses concern on mercury, other toxins
The nascent Citizens for Clean Power group is making the rounds with a documentary critical of standard practices at the Indian River Power plant, north of Dagsboro, and they stopped by the South Coastal Library in Bethany Beach on Jan. 19.
Advance notice was somewhat limited, but a double handful of concerned locals showed up to view the “Fuente de la Electricidad” documentary, Wesley College student Mike Short’s pro-green project.
Literally, the title means “Electricity Fountain,” although why Short decided to go with a Spanish tag was unclear — maybe just for kicks, if the documentary’s playful tone is any indicator.
Bathroom humor and rock ’n’ roll soundtrack aside, some of Short’s interviews brought highly relevant information to the screen. According to the documentary, the Indian River Power plant burns about 72 rail cars full of coal, or 7,200 tons (14.4 million pounds) of coal, in a typical day.
An engineer at the plant explained the process. There are four boilers at the Indian River Power plant — coal is pulverized, blown into the boiler and burned at an intense heat, generating steam. The steam drives the turbine, generating electricity.
Indian River Power re-condenses the steam with the help of cool river water — which is then returned to the river, about 10 degrees warmer than when it left. (There’s an intermediate cooling tower for one of the boilers.)
The problem, repeatedly hinted at in Short’s documentary, is that these boilers are “grandfathered” into older, less stringent, emissions standards because they were built so long ago. Two of the boilers were installed in the late 1950s, a third in 1970 and the fourth in 1980. (There’s also a combustion turbine that runs on No. 2 fuel oil, installed in the late 1960s.)
According to the permits, the section of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) “Standards of Performance for New Stationary Sources” (enacted 1971) that governs sulfuric acid production can’t be used to regulate the three older boilers.
All four predate Delaware’s “New Source Performance Standards” (1988) as well, exempting Indian River Power from, among other things, more recent and stringent emissions standards for sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and plain old particulate (soot).
Both SO2 and NOx are linked to acid rain, and soot is linked to asthma and other respiratory problems.
According to some of Short’s environmentalist interviewees, the federal government intended to grandfather the old, coal-burning plants long enough to help them transition into cleaner operations — not to grandfather them indefinitely.
“The thought was, these plants would be mothballed or updated — that hasn’t happened,” said Debbie Heaton (Delaware Sierra Club). But Heaton declined to lay blame with the power plant, or government, or the public, or any party in particular. “We’ve all been asleep on the job,” she said.
Nancy Terranova of the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) said the department had discontinued SO2 monitoring at the plant, finding Indian River Power was “in attainment.”
While recognizing the power plant’s emissions, Terranova suggested Sussex Countians would be a lot worse off without electricity.
However, as Zak insisted, it was still appropriate for locals to push for cleaner electricity. He said recent figures placed Indian River Power plant’s total emissions near 4 million pounds per year.
That included a very small, but harmful, percentage of vaporized mercury, he said. Mercury emissions at the Indian River Power plant reached 183 pounds last year, and Zak said there’d been 200-pound years in the past.
The mercury is finding its way into the fish population, and Zak said the problem is so bad that the EPA had declared fully one half of all the country’s bodies of fresh water unsafe to fish. And one out of every six American women of child-bearing age is carrying enough mercury to endanger her pregnancy, he said.
South Coastal Library’s Bernadette Hemingway asked him what state officials were doing about it, and Zak said there seemed to be little interest in the issue at the General Assembly.
“We need public education, and we need a groundswell of support for putting pressure on our legislators,” he said.
All things considered, the local plant contributes a very small percentage of electricity to the massive, regional Pennsylvania-Jersey-Maryland (PJM) grid. Zak said he didn’t feel there was any substantial roadblock along the lines of “they’ll turn the lights out on us.”
And he emphasized the dollar-for-dollar savings, cleaner technology versus health-care costs to the state.
As Short’s documentary pointed out, much of the local pollution doesn’t come from the local plant — it drifts into Delaware from coal-burning plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania, with winter’s prevailing northwest winds. Similarly, pollution from the Indian River Power plant drifts toward the lower southeast corner of the state.
Prevailing winds blow from the southwest, in the summertime — rousing Lewes residents like Zak to action.
Elsewhere in the region, Zak applauded efforts by Maryland and Virginia legislatures to clean up older plants. But regarding DNREC’s recent push for air-quality improvements, he expressed healthy skepticism.
“I’m worried that this may be one more public relations gesture, or something they’re doing to meet some older federal guidelines,” Zak said. “From what I hear, they’re talking about some serious mitigation — but this remains to be seen.”
DNREC is in the process of drafting regulations that would require newer technologies, specifically targeting SO2, NOx and mercury reductions.
“Smokestack scrubbers” effectively reduce SO2, although they’re apparently difficult to use (at least in part because the acidic byproduct is hard on the equipment, and maintenance crews).
Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technology can cut down on the NOx, and activated carbon injection eliminates mercury.
But these technologies are just three examples — according to DNREC, the power plant operators will have the final say regarding which technologies they want to install. As long as they install something. The department expects draft regulations will be ready for workshop by mid-year.