The John Amos Power Plant has released far more sulfuric acid into Kanawha Valley air than previously disclosed to the public, state regulators have discovered.
The John Amos Power Plant has released far more sulfuric acid into Kanawha Valley air than previously disclosed to the public, state regulators have discovered.
Exact estimates were not available late last week, and a new emissions report from American Electric Power may not be filed until early March.
But state Department of Environmental Protection officials calculated the Amos acid emissions at roughly four times greater than AEP previously told regulators and residents.
That could amount to several million pounds a year of unreported releases of a toxic chemical that can burn the eyes, mouth and throat, and cause respiratory problems, especially in children with asthma.
"It was significantly higher than they reported," said Earl Billingsly, supervisor of air inspectors for the state Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Air Quality.
DEP engineers are examining the John Amos acid emissions as part of their continuing investigation of the "blue haze" that hung over the Kanawha Valley three weeks ago.
AEP officials say their new pollution figures come from improved methods of estimating plant emissions. The new, higher numbers will reflect a more accurate estimate of each year's emissions, but still not show a year-to-year jump in those emissions, company officials say.
Regulators are wondering if the acid emissions actually increased over the last four years after AEP installed new equipment to control other air emissions.
The emissions reporting issue was at the heart of a major lawsuit that a year ago forced the company to greatly reduce sulfuric acid emissions from one of its plants in Ohio.
Currently, DEP permits for John Amos do not include any limit on the plant's sulfuric acid emissions.
DEP officials are still considering what, if any, actions they will take.
"There's quite a lot of internal discussions going on," Billingsly said. "But no decisions have been made."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is also looking into the matter, but is waiting for a more detailed report from AEP.
"Until we get that information, we can't really evaluate this and take a look at it," said Roy Seneca, a spokesman for EPA's regional office in Philadelphia.
'Continuous and
stable releases'
Shortly after noon Jan. 25, a blue haze started to appear in the air across the Kanawha Valley. Residents called emergency officials to complain about a strange odor, and questioned whether there had been a chemical leak. County officials began calling area plants, but none reported having any unusual releases or operating problems.
For hours, residents wondered if it was safe to walk back from lunch, drive across town to buy groceries, or pick up their kids from school.
Not until early evening did DEP officials track the problem to a pollution plume from the Amos plant, just across the Kanawha River from Poca.
AEP officials said that nothing unusual happened at their plant that day. They blamed the blue haze on an unusually strong weather event that trapped normal pollution in the Valley.
Generally, chemical factories, power plants and other industrial facilities are required to immediately report releases of hazardous materials to federal, state and local regulators. DuPont and Dow, for example, are required to do this whenever they have leaks of certain materials above a certain amount.
But the John Amos plant's sulfuric acid emissions fall under an exemption. So do Amos releases of nine other hazardous substances, including mercury and hydrochloric acid.
If a company can show that its emissions of certain chemicals are "continuous" and "stable in quantity and rate," it can avoid filing reports with regulators every day. Companies must provide estimates of the upper and lower limits of these emissions. And if they have a significant increase in release amounts, they must file a new form outlining the new figures.
Burning coal with sulfur in it produces sulfur dioxide. Inside plant stacks, some of that sulfur dioxide is converted to sulfur trioxide. When the sulfur trioxide exits the stack, it reacts with moisture in the air to form sulfuric acid.
Over the last four years, AEP has added pollution control equipment called selective catalytic reduction units, or SCRs, to reduce Amos emissions of nitrogen oxides that contribute to smog, but the SCRs also can enhance the creation of sulfur trioxide, increasing the potential for sulfuric acid emissions.
In April 2001, AEP sent EPA its first "continuous and stable" emissions form for John Amos.
The form listed a maximum of 2,300 pounds per day of sulfuric acid from one stack, and 1,800 pounds per day from a second stack, for a daily total of 4,100 pounds.
A year later, as required by law, AEP filed an anniversary report. It listed a maximum of 4,300 pounds per day of total plant releases of sulfuric acid.
The John Amos Power Plant has released far more sulfuric acid into Kanawha Valley air than previously disclosed to the public, state regulators have discovered.
Exact estimates were not available late last week, and a new emissions report from American Electric Power may not be filed until early March.
But state Department of Environmental Protection officials calculated the Amos acid emissions at roughly four times greater than AEP previously told regulators and residents.
That could amount to several million pounds a year of unreported releases of a toxic chemical that can burn the eyes, mouth and throat, and cause respiratory problems, especially in children with asthma.
"It was significantly higher than they reported," said Earl Billingsly, supervisor of air inspectors for the state Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Air Quality.
DEP engineers are examining the John Amos acid emissions as part of their continuing investigation of the "blue haze" that hung over the Kanawha Valley three weeks ago.
AEP officials say their new pollution figures come from improved methods of estimating plant emissions. The new, higher numbers will reflect a more accurate estimate of each year's emissions, but still not show a year-to-year jump in those emissions, company officials say.
Regulators are wondering if the acid emissions actually increased over the last four years after AEP installed new equipment to control other air emissions.
The emissions reporting issue was at the heart of a major lawsuit that a year ago forced the company to greatly reduce sulfuric acid emissions from one of its plants in Ohio.
Currently, DEP permits for John Amos do not include any limit on the plant's sulfuric acid emissions.
DEP officials are still considering what, if any, actions they will take.
"There's quite a lot of internal discussions going on," Billingsly said. "But no decisions have been made."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is also looking into the matter, but is waiting for a more detailed report from AEP.
"Until we get that information, we can't really evaluate this and take a look at it," said Roy Seneca, a spokesman for EPA's regional office in Philadelphia.
'Continuous and
stable releases'
Shortly after noon Jan. 25, a blue haze started to appear in the air across the Kanawha Valley. Residents called emergency officials to complain about a strange odor, and questioned whether there had been a chemical leak. County officials began calling area plants, but none reported having any unusual releases or operating problems.
For hours, residents wondered if it was safe to walk back from lunch, drive across town to buy groceries, or pick up their kids from school.
Not until early evening did DEP officials track the problem to a pollution plume from the Amos plant, just across the Kanawha River from Poca.
AEP officials said that nothing unusual happened at their plant that day. They blamed the blue haze on an unusually strong weather event that trapped normal pollution in the Valley.
Generally, chemical factories, power plants and other industrial facilities are required to immediately report releases of hazardous materials to federal, state and local regulators. DuPont and Dow, for example, are required to do this whenever they have leaks of certain materials above a certain amount.
But the John Amos plant's sulfuric acid emissions fall under an exemption. So do Amos releases of nine other hazardous substances, including mercury and hydrochloric acid.
If a company can show that its emissions of certain chemicals are "continuous" and "stable in quantity and rate," it can avoid filing reports with regulators every day. Companies must provide estimates of the upper and lower limits of these emissions. And if they have a significant increase in release amounts, they must file a new form outlining the new figures.
Burning coal with sulfur in it produces sulfur dioxide. Inside plant stacks, some of that sulfur dioxide is converted to sulfur trioxide. When the sulfur trioxide exits the stack, it reacts with moisture in the air to form sulfuric acid.
Over the last four years, AEP has added pollution control equipment called selective catalytic reduction units, or SCRs, to reduce Amos emissions of nitrogen oxides that contribute to smog, but the SCRs also can enhance the creation of sulfur trioxide, increasing the potential for sulfuric acid emissions.
In April 2001, AEP sent EPA its first "continuous and stable" emissions form for John Amos.
The form listed a maximum of 2,300 pounds per day of sulfuric acid from one stack, and 1,800 pounds per day from a second stack, for a daily total of 4,100 pounds.
A year later, as required by law, AEP filed an anniversary report. It listed a maximum of 4,300 pounds per day of total plant releases of sulfuric acid.
In 2004 and 2005, AEP brought the SCRs online to control John Amos' emissions of nitrogen oxides.
The company never filed a new report to update its estimated sulfuric acid releases.
Melissa McHenry, a spokeswoman for AEP, said that company officials "did not anticipate" an increase in sulfuric acid emissions when the SCRs went online at John Amos.
The plant was burning low-sulfur coal, and using an ammonia injection system in the SCRs, both of which would control the acid emissions, McHenry said.
AEP does not run continuous monitors to keep track of sulfuric acid releases, McHenry said. She was not sure what, if any, data had been collected since the SCRs went online.
Since the SCRs were installed at John Amos, AEP has developed better models to estimate those emissions. Previously, AEP used models that were generally accepted by the industry, but were not as accurate from plant to plant, McHenry said.
AEP is going to file new pollution estimates not only for Amos, but also for its Mitchell Plant near Moundsville, the Mountaineer Plant in New Haven, and four other facilities in Ohio and Kentucky. Company officials notified regulators of the issue in a phone call on Feb. 5, records show.
"We have developed some internal estimation models that are based on more site-specific numbers," she said.
'High levels
of sulfuric acid'
At about the same time that it filed its first sulfuric acid report for John Amos, AEP filed a similar form for its James Gavin Plant, located in Cheshire, Ohio, across the river from Mason County.
The April 2000 report said that Gavin released about 9,000 pounds a day of sulfuric acid. In its first-anniversary report, filed in May 2001, AEP increased that daily maximum, to an estimated 11,000 pounds.
But that spring, the Gavin plant turned on its new SCRs, to begin greatly reducing nitrogen oxide emissions.
Plant officials and local residents started to notice that the pollution plume looked blue. Sulfuric acid mist particles are so small that they refract light, giving a plume a bluish hue.
A German firm tested the Gavin stack gases, and found "that we had high levels of sulfuric acid," company officials later said, according to court records.
In July and August 2001, AEP revised its sulfuric acid emissions reports, telling federal regulators that Gavin was now releasing a maximum of more than 64,000 pounds of the acid mist per day. That's nearly six times the maximum emissions reported before the SCRs were in use.
For Cheshire residents, the blue haze became a major issue.
Blue plumes would touch down around town. Residents complained of burning eyes and lungs, breathing problems, headaches and rashes.
A February 2002 report from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry warned that the pollution posed a "public health hazard" to some residents, particularly those with asthma. Two months later, AEP announced that it was paying $20 million to buy out most of the town.
Residents who stayed formed a group called Citizens Against Pollution. They sued AEP, not to collect monetary damage, but to force the company to clean up the sulfuric acid emissions.
Among other allegations, the federal court lawsuit argued that AEP had violated the law by not accurately reporting its sulfuric acid emissions to regulators and the public.
While AEP had amended its emissions disclosures, the lawsuit said, it never reported the real levels of sulfuric acid emissions. Accurate reports would have listed more than 100,000 pounds per day, not the 64,000 the AEP disclosed, according to court records.
Violating the legal requirements for these emissions reports could subject AEP to fines of up to $25,000 per day, the lawsuit explained.
In September 2006, the lawsuit went to trial in U.S. District Court in Columbus. After two days of testimony, AEP agreed to work out a settlement.
Two months later, the parties announced that AEP would cut its sulfuric acid emissions in half, conduct detailed stack testing, and file emissions reports to confirm compliance.
"We're pleased to have reached a settlement that brings this lawsuit to an end and recognizes the current operating parameters of the plant," an AEP official said at the time.
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348-1702.
