Toxic emissions from the stacks of Pennsylvania power plants — including those in southwestern Pennsylvania — prematurely kill at least 550 people a year, charged the former director of Regulatory Enforcement for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Eric Schaeffer, who resigned in February to protest cuts in EPA efforts to catch air polluters, told a meeting of residents from Allegheny and Greene counties last night that invisible particulate matter from plant emissions become embedded in a person's lung tissue, causing asthma, chronic bronchitis and premature deaths. Southwestern Pennsylvania has eight power plants that are among the dirtiest in the nation, he said. They are located in Indiana, Westmoreland, Fayette, Greene, Washington and Allegheny counties and are among the biggest polluters in the nation, according to data compiled by the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory. The TRI tracks 650 chemicals from a variety of industries, including the utility industry, which emitted nearly 787,000 pounds of toxic and hazardous chemicals into the air in 2000, according to the EPA. Although most industries have been required to report toxic wastes to the federal government since the passage of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986, power plants weren't added to the inventory until 1999. Schaeffer's visit was sponsored by the Jefferson Action Group, which held a town meeting in Jefferson Hills, Allegheny County. Since leaving the EPA, Schaeffer has directed the Environmental Integrity Project in Washington, D.C. For the past seven years, the Jefferson Action Group has been complaining about pollution from the Elrama power station, owned by Reliant Energy, and fighting with the state Department of Environmental Protection over operating permits for Elrama. The plant straddles Allegheny and Washington counties. In his letter to EPA Administrator Christine Whitman, Schaeffer complained about the way the agency was handling a series of lawsuits his office had filed against nine utility companies for violating the Clean Air Act, which the EPA had charged contributed to 5,900 deaths nationwide. The Bush administration cut the budget for the regulatory enforcement program and leaked proposed changes of regulations to the utility industry that made it difficult to negotiate settlements with the offending companies, who promptly backed out of the settlements. Schaeffer said power plants in this region were built before the Clean Air Act was passed and are exempt from installing pollution control equipment that newer plants are required to have to reduce emissions of mercury, sulfur, nitrogen and carbon dioxides that are released from the coal during combustion. The plants — which include facilities at Cheswick, Elrama, Hatfield's Ferry, Homer City, Keystone, Mitchell and Bruce Mansfield — actually have increased the amounts of toxic pollutants that are emitted into the atmosphere. Health impact studies by Harvard University and the American Cancer Society have scientifically confirmed a "strong association" between these emissions and certain types of respiratory and cardio-pulmonary diseases. "It's been studied and studied," Schaeffer said. Schaeffer also said that statistically, the power plants in this region have decreased the amount of pollution from sulfur dioxide. But that, he added, occurred because one plant — the Conemaugh power station in Indiana County — installed scrubbers to catch the emissions and reduced its pollution levels from 200,000 tons annually to 6,000. "That's an incredible reduction," he added. Take Conemaugh out of the picture, and the remaining plants have increased pollution since 1980, he said. Schaeffer said Pennsylvania lags behind other states in reducing power plant pollution. He doubts whether the state will be able to meet EPA standards for fine particulate matter without these aging plants being forced to install modern pollution control equipment. One of the problems, Schaeffer said, is that the state DEP is too cozy with the utility companies it's supposed to regulate. "That was the worry that Pennsylvania was too close (to the utilities) at times," Schaeffer said. "That upset the enforcement staff." In 1997, the DEP was criticized by the Inspector General at the EPA for failing to report significant violations of the Clean Air Act. That led to charges by the state that the EPA was conducting "unnecessary bean counting" and was too aggressive in going after violators of air pollution laws. The DEP reported six "significant violators" to the EPA when the Inspector General found 64 major violations of the Clean Air Act.

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