Cliffside needs tightest air controls
By Lawrence W. Raymond and Stephen R. Keener
Special to The Observer
The North Carolina Division of Air Quality apparently intends to approve a permit allowing Duke Energy's new 800-megawatt coal plant to emit 134 pounds of brain-damaging mercury into the air every year. In contrast, it is estimated the new 660–megawatt Dominion coal plant in Virginia will emit only 4.5 pounds of mercury per year, and a Reliant Energy plant in Pennsylvania has been tested to emit only 1.5 pounds. DAQ thus would permit Duke's new plant to emit about 30 times as much mercury as the Virginia plant and 90 times as much as the Pennsylvania plant.
Mercury is a potent nervous system toxin. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services has estimated that at least 13,677 children per year are born in North Carolina with blood mercury levels high enough to cause lifelong learning disabilities. The prevailing winds from Cliffside blow toward the Charlotte region, including the Catawba River and its lakes, where the toxins concentrate. Without more stringent mercury controls, Cliffside might put even more children at risk.
Unfortunately, mercury is only one of almost 60 toxins Cliffside will emit. Others include dioxins, the most potent carcinogen known, and arsenic and other heavy metals shown to cause cancer, birth defects, decreased intelligence, central nervous system damage, depressed immune systems, respiratory, gastrointestinal and heart problems.
On Dec. 2, federal Judge Lacy Thornburg ruled that Duke Energy “is simply refusing to comply” with the Clean Air Act by not demonstrating that its new plant would meet the Act's requirement of “maximum achievable control technology” for hazardous air pollutants like mercury, dioxins, arsenic and other heavy metals.
Now Duke is attempting to sidestep tighter pollution controls. Although having admitted since 2005 that the new plant could emit 217 tons of hazardous air pollutants annually, Duke now claims the plant would emit less than 25 tons, making it a “minor” pollution source not requiring the best pollution controls. Duke has filed a new application with DAQ that reduces the estimates of hazardous air pollutants to a mere one-eighth of Duke's original projections – without changing a nut or bolt on the plant's design.
Duke now claims it can keep the new plant's hazardous emissions below the Clean Air Act's 25-ton threshold by burning only highly efficient, low-chlorine coal, and by maintaining pollution controls at 99.9 percent efficiency. It seems unlikely that Duke would always burn the cleanest coal or that pollution controls would constantly operate at 99.9 percent efficiency. Moreover, the proposed air pollution permit does not require Duke to meet those conditions.
We urge DAQ to hold Duke accountable for its claims that Cliffside will not endanger the public by requiring Duke to install the best controls for reducing emissions of dangerous neurotoxins and carcinogens.
As the December Tennessee coal ash disaster demonstrated, coal will never be “clean.” The poisons scrubbed from smokestacks don't just go away; they end up in toxic slurry ponds or landfills that can threaten our drinking water. And there are no scrubbers for the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which is fueling climate change, a looming public health catastrophe with potential to bring more heart attacks, strokes, deadly storms, droughts, food shortages and tropical diseases.
We know that our region needs energy and that some reasonable risks must be tolerated. But we all deserve the best controls to protect our health and safety. As physicians concerned about the health of North Carolinians, especially children, we urge DAQ to require Duke to install “maximum achievable control technology” for mercury, dioxins, and other highly toxic air pollutants.
Raymond is a UNC Chapel Hill professor of family medicine and director of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Carolinas HealthCare System. Kenner is medical director at the Mecklenburg County Health Department.
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Thursday 22 January 2009 - 10:55:00
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