Power Plants May Not Harm Region

By Scott Streater, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Apr. 8–ARLINGTON — A state report concludes that building as many as six power plants near Dallas-Fort Worth would have virtually no effect on local air quality.

The proposed plants worry regional leaders, who fear that pollution from them would drift into the nine-county Dallas-Fort Worth region, further degrading air quality when local leaders are scrambling to meet federal ozone standards.

The region must comply with the ozone standards by 2010 or face severe federal sanctions, including the loss of tens of millions a year in federal highway dollars.

But detailed computer models unveiled Friday during a meeting of the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee indicate that most of the pollution from the proposed plants would concentrate in Central Texas, near Waco.

“Their impacts just don’t make it into Dallas,” said Greg Yarwood, a senior consultant with Environ International Corp., which worked on the computer models with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Yarwood and Pete Breitenbach, an air pollution meteorologist with the environmental quality commission, cautioned that the modeling is based on only eight days of ozone readings, and that different wind patterns would probably produce different results.

But TXU Energy, which plans to build a large coal-fired power plant in Robertson County south of Fort Worth, said the computer models justify those plans.

“These new, more efficient plants that will replace the older plants are better for the environment in Dallas-Fort Worth,” said Shawn Glacken, TXU’s vice president for environmental policy.

The state is expected to approve construction of the plants, probably within the next year.

Glacken said state environmental regulators and regional leaders should focus their ozone-fighting efforts on the region’s No. 1 source of ozone-producing emissions: automobiles and off-road construction equipment.

Clean-air advocates are not convinced.

Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of the Texas chapter of Public Citizen in Austin, said that on most days when regional ozone levels violate federal standards, the wind is from the south-southeast — where the new plants would be. The computer models are based on days the wind was from the northeast, when pollution from the plants would not be expected to have much effect locally, Smith said.

“Why are we deciding policy on those days not conducive to ozone?” he asked.

Yarwood argued that a more effective ozone-fighting alternative would be to mandate emissions reductions on power plants within the nine-county Dallas-Fort Worth region.

IN THE KNOW

Ground-level ozone

The federal government regulates ozone levels as a health concern.

At high concentrations, ozone can trigger asthma attacks, stunt lung development in children and aggravate bronchitis, emphysema and other respiratory problems.

Nine counties in Dallas-Fort Worth do not meet the standard: Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Johnson, Kaufman, Parker, Rockwall and Tarrant.

Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, needs lots of sunlight and heat to form. For that reason, ozone season in Dallas-Fort Worth runs from May 1 through October.

Ozone is produced when nitrogen oxides mix with volatile organic compounds. The nitrogen oxides and organic compounds come mostly from automobile exhaust and industry smokestacks. Trees also produce the organic compounds as part of photosynthesis.

SOURCE: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

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Scott Streater, (817) 390-7657 sstreater@star-telegram.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

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