Sierra Club, NRDC sue Michigan over permit for coal plant

The Sierra Club and the Natural Resource Defense Council are suing the state for issuing an air permit for a coal-burning power generation facility planned by the Wolverine Power Cooperative in Rogers City.

In a suit filed in Ingham County last week, the groups argue that Gov. Rick Snyder’s Dept. of Environmental Quality violated the federal Clean Air Act when it reversed a previous permit denial and approved the project in June.

The Cadillac-based Wolverine Power Cooperative wants to build two 300-megawatt circulating fluidized bed boilers in a limestone quarry next to Lake Huron and first applied for a permit in 2007.

Last year the state denied a permit for the project after the Michigan Public Service Commission found the company had failed to consider less polluting ways of generating electricity and the plant’s power was not needed. It also found that residential rates would increase by 60 percent because of the expense of the project.

Wolverine sued over the permit denial and in January and the Missaukee Circuit Court found that the DEQ had wrongly rejected the permit “based only on need” and ordered the agency to reconsider the permit application.

In June the DEQ approved the company’s plan for a plant that would burn a mix of petroleum coke, coal and trees from the surrounding area.

The agency granted a permit that allows the facility to emit 4,000 tons of carbon monoxide (CO), 1300 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2), 2600 tons of nitrogen oxides (NOX), 200 tons of particulate matter (PM), 725 tons of particulate matter smaller than ten microns (PM10), 80.0 tons of sulfuric acid mist, 170 tons of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), 700 pounds of lead, 46.8 pounds of mercury, 8 tons of hydrogen fluoride, 30 tons of hydrogen chloride and 6,000,000 tons of greenhouse gases each year.

These levels of emissions qualify the plant as a major source of pollution under federal Clean Air Act and as the state agency responsible for ensuring compliance with federal air rules, DEQ is charged with making sure that Wolverine takes appropriate steps to control emissions.

According to the Sierra Club and NRDC the state did not require Wolverine to show that they would use the best and most up-to-date pollution control technologies, some of which are already in use at other power plants.

The state’s failure to require the best technology threatens public health, the group said, because the plant’s expected pollutants contribute to smog, acid rain and cause respiratory and other health problems.

“For example,” the groups say, “mercury is a highly toxic and persistent pollutant that deposits into rivers, lakes, and streams, and then bioaccumulates in the food chain. … Fetuses or young children that are exposed to elevated mercury levels may experience developmental disabilities, including cerebral palsy, reduced neurological test score and delays and deficits in learning abilities.”

Coal-fired power plants are a leading source of Great Lakes-area mercury contamination, which has forced health officials to issue consumption advisories for many fish.

Federal rules for greenhouse gas emissions are still in their infancy and the Wolverine project is one of the first in the nation to be considered since they went into effect this year. In considering the permit application, Michigan officials found that Wolverine’s plan to use energy efficient devices inside the plant adequately addressed the facility’s responsibility to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The environmental groups argue that more substantial steps — such as burning natural gas rather than coal — should have been considered.

The groups also say that the DEQ violated the CAA by failing to consider whether the plant was needed in light of its negative air impacts.

Wolverine could easily meet its power needs in less polluting ways, they argue.

“In late 2009, Wolverine purchased the 340-megawatt Sumpter natural gas peaking plant, … [which] can be converted to a combined cycle plant to meet Wolverine’s future baseload energy needs, at a smaller economic and environmental cost to Wolverine’s customers and Michigan residents than the proposed coal plant.”

“Wolverine’s proposed coal plant is, as the Michigan Public Service Commission staff found, an unnecessary and costly mistake,” said Shannon Fisk, Senior Attorney at the Midwest Office of NRDC. “Wolverine should stop wasting its ratepayers’ money, cancel this multi-billion dollar pipe dream, and instead pursue cleaner energy sources that will create jobs and protect public health.”