EPA considers clean air suits against Nevada Power, others

Thursday, July 15, 2004 | 11:01 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

WASHINGTON -- The owners of nearly two dozen mostly coal-burning power plants, including Nevada Power Co., could face lawsuits from the Environmental Protection Agency for clean air violations stemming from plant expansions or improvements, according to agency officials and documents.

The EPA and the Justice Department are considering actions against operators of 22 plants for alleged violations of a regulation that the Bush administration has been trying to scale back and make less burdensome to industry.

The rule requires utilities to install additional pollution controls when making expansions or improvements that result in more emissions. Utilities have argued the rule has been abused by regulators targeting routine, needed maintenance.

Nevada Power Co. owns a stake in three coal-fired power plants, but company officials said its EPA issue involves the Clark Generating Station, a natural gas-fired plant on Russell Road in Las Vegas.

Roberto Denis, Nevada Power's vice president for energy supply, said it involves upgrades at the plant which began in 1988. The work was completed in 1993. In 2000, however, the EPA began seeking additional information about the upgrades and additional modifications were made.

The EPA, however, has continued questioning the plant's compliance with pollution control standards and in 2003 issued a Notice of Violation and Finding of Violation regarding turbine blade upgrades dating back to 1993. The EPA and Nevada Power officials have met to discuss the issue, but the company has not been notified of any pending legal action, Denis said.

"We have been having meetings with the EPA on this, and we have been cooperating," Denis said. "They have not made a decision on this."

Denis also said the company believes it is in full compliance with all applicable rules.

"We clearly believe the EPA is flat wrong in this instance," he said.

Michael Elges, chief of the state Bureau of Air Pollution Control, said Nevada Power's plants are all in good standing.

"We inspect the facilities at least on an annual basis," Elges said this morning. "As far as the state of Nevada is concerned there are no unresolved enforcement issues."

Nevada Power's Reid-Gardner plan is equipped with "scrubbers" that are supposed to reduce emissions by 80 to 90 percent, Elges said.

No decision on whether to file the lawsuits has been made but at least 14 of the cases have been turned over to the Justice Department for possible action, said an EPA official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the cases are pending.

Some cases may be settled before going to court or possibly dropped, the EPA official and industry sources said.

A list of the utilities being targeted was obtained by the Associated Press.

The enforcement agenda represents five years of preparation by EPA staff to identify alleged clean air violations under the so-called "new source review" requirements of the Clean Air Act. Among the targets are some of the country's largest utilities.

Neither the EPA nor the Justice Department would confirm or deny on the record the pending enforcement actions.

"We will not discuss ongoing enforcement investigations," said EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman.

Justice spokesman Blaine Rethmeier said the department had no comment on pending cases, but he added, "We are vigorously prosecuting all the (new source review) cases" before the department.

The Clinton administration brought nine cases involving 51 power plants under the rule, and another six cases had been filed since then, even as the Bush administration has sought to make the regulation less stringent. Seven of those 15 cases have been settled.

The enforcement cases involve regulations that have been strongly criticized by the White House and have been the target of an intensive overhaul within the EPA because of arguments by industry that they have hindered plant maintenance, expansion and efficiency.

In December, a federal appeals court blocked the Bush administration's planned changes in the "new source review" rules until a lawsuit filed by more than a dozen states challenging the changes can be fully considered.