Morgantown Dominion Post
29 July 2006
By Evelyn Ryan
Allegheny Energy Supply plans to spend $900 million to install flue gas desulfurization equipment (scrubbers) at both area power plants.
The scrubbers will cut sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions 95 percent, company engineers report. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identifies SO2 produced by coalburning power plants as a key element in creating acid rain.
The utility is still negotiating contracts to install a system at Fort Martin Power Station, near Maidsville, but has signed agreements for work at Hatfield's Ferry Power Station, just north of Masontown, Pa., Allegheny spokesman Allen Staggers said this week.
Both projects are expected to be completed by the end of 2009.
The scrubbers will reduce SO2 emissions at Hatfield's Ferry by 145,000 tons per year, and by 92,000 tons per year at Fort Martin, company engineers have calculated.
Environmental groups consider Hatfield's Ferry the dirtiest power plant in this region when it comes to air pollution. In June 2004, six Greenpeace activists used it as an illustration when they climbed a 700-foot smokestack at the plant to protest President Bush's energy plan.
Jim Kotcon, a Sierra Club member, said scrubbing the two power stations "will significantly improve air quality locally. This is a step environmentalists have advocated for many years. We believe that additional reductions may eventually be necessary, but these are steps in the right direction."
The Allegheny Energy plants now burn a combination of highsulfur coal mined in this region and a lower sulfur coal shipped in from the Powder River Basin, in Wyoming. Once the scrubbers are in operation, the plants will burn only regional coal, Staggers said.
The Babcock & Wilcox Co. will design, engineer and build the scrubber equipment for Hatfield's Ferry, and the Washington Group International will provide related engineering, procurement and construction services, Allegheny announced earlier this month.
The scrubber project at Hatfield's Ferry is expected to cost about $550 million. The Fort Martin project is expected to cost more than $330 million, Staggers said.
The project at Hatfield's Ferry, a 1,710-megawatt facility, is more expensive because the plant has three generating units, while Fort Martin, a 1,107-megawatt facility, has only two, he said. Each project is expected to create about 350 construction jobs.
Two more power plants are being built nearby.
Longview, a 600-megawatt coalfired power plant, is obtaining permits to build on Fort Martin Road, not far from the Fort Martin Power Station and the Pennsylvania state line. Company officials have said it will have state-of-the-art equipment to reduce pollution.
The Greene Energy plant, about the size of Fort Martin Power Station, would burn gob and waste coal on a site at Carmichaels, Pa. Residents appealing Greene Energy's permits were heard by a judge in June, and that information is being taken back to the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board for consideration.
Fact sheets on Allegheny's scrubber projects can be found on the Web at alleghenyenergy.com/Newsroom/Newsroom Home.asp.