Kentucky Utilities Fined $1.4 Million for Clean Air Violations at 700-MW Coal Plant
Kentucky Utilities (KU) last week agreed to pay a $1.4 million civil penalty and spend approximately $135 million on pollution controls to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The federal agencies had filed a complaint against the company, owned by Germany’s E.ON, in March 2007 for allegedly making modifications to its E.W. Brown Generating Station in Kentucky’s Mercer County more than 10 years earlier. The agencies said the utility had made the modifications without installing required pollution control equipment or complying with emission limits.
The 700-MW unit has been operating since 1971, and the modifications made in 1997 allowed the unit to increase the amount of coal it burned and increase the amount and rate of emissions for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and particulate matter, the government said. The EPA said it had discovered the alleged violations through an information request submitted to KU.
KU, whose generating facilities are predominantly coal-fired, did not comment on the settlement or the charges.
The government said that the utility has agreed to install new pollution control equipment on its largest generating unit that will reduce combined emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by more than 31,000 tons per year (90% below the 2007 emission levels). KU will also install controls to reduce particulate matter emissions by approximately 1,000 tons per year.
KU will spend approximately $3 million on projects to benefit the environment and mitigate the adverse effects of the alleged violations. These include contributing $1.8 million to a pilot project to assess the effectiveness of storing compressed carbon dioxide gas in deep injection wells; spending $1 million to retrofit school buses with filters or other controls to reduce emissions of particulate matter; and paying $200,000 to the National Park Service to help restore Mammoth Cave National Park.
KU has also agreed to surrender the excess nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide allowances it will have after installing the pollution controls. Coal-fired power plants are allowed to emit sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides as allowances, which are granted under federal or state acid rain permits. Once surrendered, these allowances cannot be used again, thus removing the emissions from the environment permanently.
The proposed settlement was lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky in Lexington and is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final court approval.
Sources: DOJ, EPA