A Cleaner Coal Plant May Cost Utility
MidAmerican Energy Co. built a cleaner power plant in Council Bluffs than environmental regulators had approved, but regulators say the utility didn’t follow the rules and needs to pay the price.
The utility failed to file all the necessary permits before beginning construction, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and modified the coal plant without the state’s permission. The permits are how the government controls pollution.
The $1.2 billion plant that went online Friday is the largest in Iowa. Fourteen other utilities, including the Lincoln Electric System and the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, are joint owners.
Todd Raba, president of MidAmerican, said the utility does not believe that its actions were improper.
"The fundamental point I want to get across," Raba said, "is that this is not about MidAmerican taking action that is adverse to the environment. We are very serious about our environmental commitment."
Wayne Gieselman, administrator for environmental services for the Department of Natural Resources, said the issue goes to the heart of environmental regulations.
"The fact that they are emitting less is great," he said, "but they could have been emitting more and we wouldn’t have known."
On Tuesday, the State Environmental Protection Commission voted 5-1 to forward the Department of Natural Resource’s complaint against MidAmerican to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office for prosecution because it can seek steeper fines.
The maximum fine the Department of Natural Resources can levy is $10,000, whereas the Attorney General’s Office can seek fines up to $10,000 a day per infraction. Additionally, federal fines of up to $32,500 per infraction can be levied. In this case, the state is alleging 24 separate infractions.
"We believe the gravity of this and the seriousness of this is more than $10,000," Gieselman said, adding that he did not know what level of fine the Attorney General’s Office would seek.
Raba said the utility has already been in contact with the Attorney General’s Office about settling the case. MidAmerican, he said, believed that the changes it was making to the plant’s design were minor and thus could properly be dealt with in post-construction permits.
Because of the tons of air pollution emitted by coal plants, utilities must file construction plans with regulators as part of the permit process to demonstrate that the plant is using the best available technology. For each point in a plant where pollution is released — and there can be dozens — the utility must demonstrate before construction that it is taking proper precautions.
"They build power plants," Gieselman said of MidAmerican. "That’s what they do. They should have known."
According to the Department of Natural Resources, MidAmerican should have filed 30 permit requests before beginning construction but filed only 19. Permits were not sought for vents and exhaust points generally having to do with lime, activated carbon, fly ash and soda ash facilities, according to the state. Three years after the start of construction, MidAmerican applied for permits for those 11 points and subsequently was granted them.
Additionally, the state agency says, the utility modified plans for 13 exhaust points without notifying the state. The changes include modifications to the plant’s main boiler, auxiliary boiler, emergency generator, cooling tower and other facilities.
According to MidAmerican, a number of the changes involve such things as altering the angle of an exhaust stack, filter or vent or increasing or decreasing a stack’s height or diameter.
As a result of the changes, MidAmerican projects that the plant will emit about 875 tons of particulate matter a year, which is 38 fewer tons than previously approved by the state. Particulates are things such as dust and soot.
The state is not asking MidAmerican to cease operation of the plant, which would have been costly. The utility estimates that a three-month shutdown could cost the 15 co-owners and their customers $75 million.
MidAmerican filed its initial batch of permits with the state in 2002 and began construction in 2003. In 2006 it filed amended permit applications, and in 2007 it began test operations before bringing the plant completely online.
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