[Archived] News Release - City of Alexandria Opposes Mirant's Illegal Activity

City Press Release


	For Immediate Release	For More Information, Contact
	August 21, 2007 PIO# 201-07/sjm	Steve Mason, Director of Communications, at 703.838.4300

CITY OF ALEXANDRIA OPPOSES MIRANT’S ILLEGAL ACTIVITY

The City of Alexandria announced today that it would pursue all available legal and administrative options to have Mirant cease its illegal construction activities at its Potomac River Generating plant. On August 16, 2007, Mirant announced its intention to immediately begin work on merging its five smoke stacks at the plant into two, in order to distribute pollution from the plant over a wider area. “This contravenes the directive of the State Air Pollution Control Board, which required Mirant to submit additional data, and undergo review and public comment, before the Board would consider the company’s application to approve the stack merger,” said Mayor William Euille. “In fact, Mirant’s announcement short-circuits the ongoing regulatory process before the Board on which the City and its citizens have relied.”

In September 2005, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality determined that Mirant’s stack merge project required a permit. “The stack merge is one component in the overall consideration of a comprehensive operating permit for the plant that covers the full range of air pollutants and toxic substances,” said Alexandria City Attorney Ignacio Pessoa.

Alexandria has consistently supported the issuance of a comprehensive permit for the plant, and opposed the piecemeal approach advocated by Mirant. “A comprehensive analysis of the effects of the stack merge has not been undertaken. Without a comprehensive analysis of the critical issues implicated by the stack merge, it is hard to determine exactly what Mirant is pumping into the air of the adjacent and nearby neighborhoods,” said Bill Skrabak, Division Chief of Environmental Quality for the City’s Department of Transportation and Environmental Services, “but data the City has reviewed shows a vast increase in emissions. As the DEQ representative stated before the Board, allowing the stack merge to go forward without first resolving such issues would be like ‘putting toothpaste back in the tube.’”

The underlying rationale for the stack merge project is to increase the plant’s operations and therefore, its emissions, and distribute those increased emissions over a wider area. The stack merge impacts the entire combustion-to-exhaust process at the plant and is clearly an attempt to increase emissions. Together with its petition to overturn the Board’s permit limiting emissions of sulfur dioxide, the accelerated stack merge project is a clear attempt by Mirant to turn the clock back on the public health advances the Air Pollution Control Board has required at this outdated plant.

“We are also concerned that Mirant’s increased production will exacerbate an already intolerable particulate matter emissions situation,” said Skrabak. Particulate matter is the fine dust generated by the operation of the plant that becomes embedded deep in the human lungs and is recognized as a severe public health threat. The City maintains that the stack merge has not been shown to help the residents of Alexandria or residents of the neighboring jurisdictions. “We will continue to do everything to protect the health of our citizens and families,” said Mayor Euille, “despite Mirant’s obvious disregard for the law and the health of our community.”

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