June 3: Testimony from Rachael Belz

My name is Rachael Belz. I represent Ohio Citizen Action, the state’s largest environmental organization with 80,000 members statewide.

I am appalled that neither Ohio EPA, nor AMP-Ohio, have conducted a rigorous Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) assessment of the proposed plant. This is an obligation that the Ohio EPA and AMP-Ohio must fulfill - particularly to Meigs Co. and area neighbors who will be breathing the hazardous air pollution but not gaining any of the power from the new plant.

Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) including mercury, manganese, arsenic and hydrochloric acid, among other pollutants, that have proven negative health impacts. Some are suspected to be carcinogens. The Clean Air Act requires that HAPs be limited as strictly as possible in a major pollution source like a coal plant.

The Bush administration, in the case of mercury, issued the clean air mercury rule (CAMR.) This mercury rule also brought with it a proposal to remove coal plants entirely from the list of sources whose HAP emissions can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. On February 8, 2008, a federal court struck this down, together with CAMR. However, AMP-Ohio's air permit was issued on February 7, 2008.

AMP and Ohio EPA have decided to rewrite the air permit so that it's in the wording of the previous state and federal rules that required a MACT analysis. This process involves consideration of many alternatives, comparison with permits and plants elsewhere, and examination of technological options. This MACT analysis isn’t just a good idea – it’s the law. And the fact that AMP-Ohio thinks they already meet the more stringent MACT standards without such analyses and comparisons is laughable. This situation is the absolute definition of attempting to “have your cake and eat it too.”

However, the limits in the original air permit were already set way too high. And, as previously stated, instead of actually undergoing the MACT analysis as the law requires, AMP and Ohio EPA have now decided that the permit already qualified as 'maximum achievable.' Where are the studies to support this? How can AMP-Ohio and Ohio EPA justify how AMP's proposed air emissions could be significantly higher than other existing coal plants and still be considered 'maximum achievable' pollution control?

On the point of another particular HAP – manganese – the people in the local area are already being polluted by Fellman’s air releases of large amounts of manganese. This permit as written and interpreted, would add more dangerous manganese releases to the region.

My drinking water comes from the Ohio River, downstream from the proposed plant. Millions of us get our drinking water from the Ohio River. This plant would put out more mercury than other plants already operating – an obvious violation of the law. We do not need our drinking water up and down the Ohio River, and Ohio River fish, to contain more mercury. We need to be going in the opposite direction on severely limiting or banning mercury and these other hazardous air pollutants.

The MACT law is quite clear. There are many reasons for the MACT analysis and comparisons to be done. The people who would be living near the proposed plant – and all of us throughout the region breathing the most hazardous air pollutants and drinking the water polluted by it deserve it.