[Archived] Mirant Community Monitoring Group Meeting To Discuss Potential Settlement on Monday, June 30

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  June 28, 2008     

Mirant Community Monitoring Group Meeting
To Discuss Potential Settlement on Monday, June 30

The City of Alexandria invites residents to attend the Mirant Community Monitoring Group (MCMG) meeting on Monday, June 30, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. The meeting will be held in the Sister Cities Conference Room 1101, Alexandria City Hall, 301 King St. At the meeting, the MCMG will discuss the City’s current negotiations and potential agreement with Mirant regarding its Potomac River Generating Station facility.

On June 28, the City of Alexandria released the details of the potential settlement with Mirant, which the MCMG will consider at its meeting on Monday. The Alexandria City Council will discuss the proposed settlement on Tuesday, July 1, 6:30 p.m., in City Council Chambers, located on the second floor of City Hall. The proposed settlement document can be viewed at www.alexandriava.gov.

In the proposed settlement, Mirant would agree to invest $34 million for pollution controls-related capital improvements at its Potomac River Generating Station to achieve emission reductions. The City would determine how this money would be spent and has proposed to use these funds to conduct an engineering study to determine the best emission controls and to pay for their installation. The City would have full oversight on the selection of the engineer, the control technology to be installed, and the vendor that installs the emissions controls. Mirant will also install additional fugitive emissions control technology.

Mirant would be allowed, subject to a permit from the State Air Pollution Control Board, to complete its two-stack merger and operate up to five boilers. The permit will have PM 2.5 (particulate matter) limits that are compliant with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards and are more stringent than those in the original permit proposed by Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in December 2007. Mirant would install a continuous emission monitoring system for PM 2.5 and CO (carbon monoxide), provide all monitoring data to the City, and allow access for City officials to check on progress and observe stack tests.

For more information regarding the MCMG meeting, please contact Khoa Tran, Senior Air Pollution Control Specialist with the Office of Environmental Quality, at 703.838.4334. For more information regarding the potential settlement, please contact City Attorney Ignacio Pessoa at 703.838.4433, or visit www.alexandriava.gov/mirant.