EPA imposes maximum cleanup for San Juan power plant
(Special to the Times - Diane Schmidt)
The plume from the San Juan Generating Station, in a series of photographs taken on Oct. 26, 2003, drifts into the sky. The photos were taken on the day that President George W. Bush announced revised EPA regulations.
By Diane J. Schmidt
Special to the Times
ALBUQUERQUE, Sept. 5, 2011
(Special to the Times - Diane Schmidt
Harvey White, M.D. )
Public Service Company of New Mexico, the plant manager, immediately responded that it would appeal, saying it would cost more than $750 million to comply with the EPA ruling and that a cheaper alternative is available.
The ruling is aimed at reducing haze caused by plant emissions, which impacts the whole region including several national parks.
The EPA plan would require catalytic reduction technology on all four units at the San Juan plant. PNM officials said they can do the job just as well for just $77 million with another approach, using non-catalytic converters.
The EPA plan was welcomed by environmentalists and citizen groups concerned about health problems caused by power plant pollution.
But as the Farmington Daily Times had reported, "Local elected officials, business groups, and PNM waged a fierce campaign to persuade the EPA that a less restrictive state plan would be adequate to cut pollution."
The EPA's ruling also contrasted with an alternate plan proposed by the New Mexico Environment Department that would have cost less.
Asked how the state felt about the ruling, Jim Winchester, communications director for NMED, issued this statement: "The New Mexico Environment Department disagrees with EPA's decision and fears that it may unnecessarily increase electricity costs in New Mexico. Based on EPA's own rationale and assumptions, the proposal submitted by New Mexico in June satisfied the interstate transport requirements of the Clean Air Act.
"New Mexico's proposal also would have resulted in considerable emission reductions and utilized more cost-effective technology," the statement says. "Because courts interpreting the Clean Air Act have repeatedly emphasized that Congress intended for states to have discretion in making Best Available Retrofit Technology determinations, we believe that EPA should have given New Mexico's proposal more weight than it apparently did."
Back in 2010, Gov. Bill Richardson's administration cited the San Juan plant for air pollution violations that occurred after PNM added controls to its stacks. These emissions occurred after $330 million upgrades that PNM had made in 2009 that were supposed to have corrected earlier problems.
"Now that the upgrades are complete and the plant has significantly better environmental performance, PNM does not expect excess emissions in the future or any penalties associated with these emissions," President and CEO Vincent-Collawn said in a May 5, 2009, press release.
However, in documents provided by the NMED, just three months later, two stacks failed tests for particulate matter.
Since then Susana Martinez, an outspoken critic of stringent environmental regulation, has taken over as governor and on Aug. 23, NMED announced that PNM would pay a $125,000 fine for the violations.
The emissions in question occurred both before and after new pollution controls were installed by PNM in May 2009, the agency said in a press release.
Asked how the fines were determined, Winchester said they were "determined through an entire penalty procedure. They followed that procedure." He followed up with a copy of the citations and an e-mail stating, "The penalty assessments were made in accordance with our penalty policy ... NOV PUB-1421-0901 totaled $80,025.60, and NOV PUB-1421-1001 totaled $45,312, for a combined total of $125,337.60. We rounded down the penalty to $125,000."
The small size of the fines has not gone unnoticed.
"From a larger perspective, it's as different as night and day concerning our environment. This is an administration that cares only about business," said former state Rep. Benjamin Rodefer, D-Corrales, who served on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee during Richardson's administration.
"My impression is that, if it was solely up to the governor, there would be no environment department - that businesses would self-regulate themselves, but we haven't seen any proof in the past that they have been willing to do that."
These emissions could have incurred fines of $15,000 a day, according to the NMED Air Quality Bureau's Civil Penalty Policy. On page 6 it states, 'the civil penalty shall not exceed the statutory maximum violation per day ($15,000)..."
NMED records show that a total of 94 days elapsed before all six violations were corrected. The details of how the fine was determined are confidential and are subject to negotiation, Winchester said, but criteria include the history of problems with the specific violator, corrective action compliance history, severity and length of the violation, and transparency of reporting violations.
The violations involved more than 2.5 times the allowed limit on carbon monoxide (the gas that will kill you if you leave your car running in the garage), and numerous major violations for particulate matter that contained metals, smoke and acids.
Aesthetic considerations aside, particulate pollution can be a health threat, according to Dr. Harvey White, founder of Vessel Health and former medical director of the Heart Hospital of New Mexico.
"Particulate matter in the air has both short term and long term effects on health," said White, who worked at IHS for many years and still continues to care for Native American patients at clinics in Gallup on a weekly basis.
"Although much of it has to do with lung function, asthma in the short run, and emphysema in the long run, there is increasing evidence that particulates may have an effect also on the cardio-vascular system, and that's all being researched as we speak. This is an important environmental stress that needs to continue to be looked into."