Why it’s time to turn GenOnoff.

The GenOn coal plant is making us sick.

• Nearly 140,000 people live within three miles of the plant and its air and water pollution.[1] 

• Our metro area is fifth in the nation for deaths from pollution from coal-fired power plants,[2] and the GenOn plant alone causes 37 deaths a year.[3]  Pollution from the GenOn coal plant is responsible for 60 heart attacks, 610 asthma attacks, 28 hospitalizations, and 23 cases of chronic bronchitis annually in our community, that amount to healthcare costs of over $287 million a year.[4]

The GenOn coal plant is polluting our air and water.

• The plant has been cited for air quality violations by the Virginia Department of Environment three times in the last three years.[5]

• The plant’s response to air quality violations, merged smokestacks, has not eliminated the plant's pollution. The plant continues to affect the nearby Alexandria community, and to blow pollution into neighboring Maryland and DC.[6] 

• Spills at the plant site have dumped hundreds of gallons of oil into the Potomac River on two occasions within the last five months.[7]

• The plant produces 145 pounds of mercury every year that pollutes the surrounding air and water.[8] Mercury is a potent neurotoxin harmful to children at even very low doses.[9] Emissions from coal plants expose people to airborne mercury, and the EPA has said that of the air pollutants from the utility industry, mercury poses the greatest concern to public health. [10] 

• Mercury emitted into the air by coal-fired power plants also ends up in water bodies, where it assumes a highly toxic form known as Methylmercury, which is ingested by fish.[11] Alexandrians have been seen fishing in waters around the plant. Eating fish contaminated with mercury exposes people to Methylmercury poisoning, which impairs cognitive health.[12] 

• In the latest draft permit for the plant, EPA is proposing to allow the plant to discharge to the Potomac up to 9.2 pounds per day of bis (2ethylhexyl) phthalate — a chemical that EPA has concluded is a probable human carcinogen, and which recent research demonstrates may potentially have adverse effects on the development of the reproductive tract, especially in males, including reduced penis size and the incomplete descent of testes.[13]

The GenOn coal plant is driving destruction of Appalachia’s mountains and streams.

• Between 2006 and 2010, the plant purchased coal from mountaintop removal and underground mines in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia, including Power Mountain Coal Company’s processing facility, which sits atop one of the largest mountain top removal mining sites in West Virginia.[14]

• Mountaintop removal, a destructive coal mining practice that blows up mountains with explosives and dumps waste rock in valley streams, has destroyed over 500 mountains and buried 1,000 miles of streams in Appalachia.[15]

• Coal mining in Appalachia causes higher rates of lung cancer; chronic heart, lung, and kidney disease; and deaths in local communities.[16]
  

GenOn sites have been dumping waste in our communities.

• The plant’s toxic coal ash was previously dumped at sites in Virginia and Maryland. Coal ash, which contains mercury, arsenic, and lead, leaches into the drinking water of communities near coal ash sites, causing increased rates of cancer and other illnesses.[17]

• Once dumped, the coal ash waste from the GenOn plant poses a serious risk to our communities. Last year, leaching from coal ash dumpsites now owned by GenOn in Maryland prompted the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to investigate and sue for groundwater and water pollution violations.[18] This year, similar violations at two additional dumpsites now owned by GenOn were cited by the DEQ as grounds for potential lawsuits.[19] 

Coal plants like the GenOn plant are our local front in addressing climate change.

• Emissions from coal-fired power plants are our country’s single greatest stationary source of the pollution that causes global warming.

• Last year, the plant spewed hundreds of thousands of tons of climate pollution, as if nearly 15,000 additional cars were on the road.[20]

• Since 2001, 150 planned coal plants have been taken off the drawing board due to mounting public opposition and a lack of funding.[21]

• It’s now time to turn our attention to the existing old, dirty coal plants that continue to pollute our neighborhoods and communities. We can take action on climate change now by retiring the GenOn coal plant permanently, and by investing instead in energy efficiency and cleaner power.
  

The GenOn coal plant isn’t even necessary!

• The GenOn coal plant provides only occasional generation to the grid, and does not directly power local homes and businesses. 

• The GenOn coal plant produces less than 20% of the power it could at full capacity.[22]  So despite the ongoing pollution and significant health burden the plant places on all of us, it isn’t even playing a critical part in our region’s larger energy system.  
  

The GenOn coal plant’s site on the Alexandria waterfront could be put to better use.

• The plant imposes a health burden estimated at $270,000 a year on our region.[23]
• Across Virginia, energy efficiency work could create 10,000 green jobs.[24] 
• Development of the beautiful waterfront site where the plant now sits could generate significant revenue for the City of Alexandria without polluting the air and water and making people sick.
• Currently, both Austin and Chicago are in the process of putting old power plant sites to a healthier purpose. These cities are transforming these sites to include, variously, a learning facility, office space, shops, condominiums, hotels, event space, and an outdoor terrace.[25] Development of the Austin site is expected to create more than 200 jobs and produce $2 million a year in tax revenue.[26]

The GenOn plant sends the wrong message about our energy future.

GenOn is the closest coal plant to Washington, DC, our nation’s capital.[27] Join us to send a message about cleaner energy.
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Citations:

[1]               EPA’s Enforcement & Compliance History Online (ECHO), Detailed Facility Report, http://3bl.me/v546da.
[2]              “The Toll from Coal: An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America's Dirtiest Energy Source,” Clean Air Task Force. September 2010.
[3]             Ibid.
[4]             Ibid.
[5]              State Air Pollution Control Board Enforcement Action Orders by Consent Issued to Mirant Potomac River, LLC for the Mirant Potomac River Generating Station, Registration No. 70228 issued July 2, 2008 and March 16, 2009. Orders reference three Notices of Violation issued March 23, 2007; March 12, 2008; and December 18, 2008.
[6]             The text of the City of Alexandria’s 2008 agreement with the plant’s previous owners is available at www.AlexandriaVA.gov/Mirant.
[7]            “Oil Spill Prompts Investigations,” in Alexandria Times. January 27, 2011. “Founders Sheen: Virginia power plant leaks oil into District of Columbia waters,” in Alexandria Gazette Packet. October 12, 2010.
[8]           “Dirty Energy’s Assault on Our Health: Mercury,” Environment America. January 2011.
[9]             “The Toll from Coal: An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America's Dirtiest Energy Source,” Clean Air Task Force. September 2010.
[10]              “In the utility [Report to Congress], the EPA indicated that coal - and oil - fired electric utility steam generating units are significant emitters of HAP [Hazardous Air Pollutants], including mercury which is emitted from coal-fired units, and which EPA identified as the HAP of greatest concern to public health from the [utility] industry.” Report referenced and discussed in source Regulatory Finding on the Emissions of Hazardous Air Pollutants from Electric Utility Steam Generating Units, 65 Fed. Reg. 79,825 (Dec. 20, 2000)

[11]             Melanie Kleiss Borger, Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation. Comments submitted on behalf of the Patuxant Riverkeeper and the Patomac River Keeper to Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, concerning Comprehensive State Operating Permit for the Mirant Potomac River Generating Station. January 29, 2008. "Most of the mercury currently entering U.S. water bodies and contaminating fish is the result of air emissions which, following atmospheric transport, deposit onto watersheds of or directly to water bodies." and "Mercury emitted from electric utility steam generating units (and other sources)...and eventually deposits onto land or water bodies...once deposited, the chemical form of mercury can change...into methylmercury which is a highly toxic, more bioavailable, form that biomagnifies in the aquatic food chain (e.g., fish)...nearly all the mercury that accumulates in fish is methylmercury."  Report referenced and discussed  in source Regulatory Finding on the Emissions of Hazardous Air Pollutants from Electric Utility Steam Generating Units, 65 Fed. Reg. 79,825 (Dec. 20, 2000).
[12]            Ibid.
[13]           Draft Fact Sheet,   National Pollutant Discharge and Elimination System, Permit Renewal, Mirant Potomac River Station, November 2006. (NPDES Permit Number: DC0022004). EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System for Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) (CASRN 117-81-7): http://www.epa.gov/iris/subst/0014.htm. “Plasticizer may make boys less masculine: Prenatal exposure to phthalates could lead to smaller penis size and incomplete descent of testicles in baby boys,” by Janet Pelley in Environmental Science and Technology, November 12, 2008.

[14]            “2010, 2009, 2008 EIA-923 Monthly Time Series File: Fuel Receipts and Cost,” from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, EIA-923 Schedules 2, and EIA-860. Research contributed by Benji Burrell at Appalachian Voices.
[15]               http://www.ILoveMountains.org.    
[16]             “Mountaintop Mining Consequences,” in Science. M. A. Palmer,  E. S. Bernhardt,  W. H. Schlesinger,  K. N. Eshleman,  E. Foufoula-Georgiou, M. S. Hendryx,  A. D. Lemly, G. E. Likens,  O. L. Loucks,  M. E. Power,  P. S. White,  and P. R. Wilcock. January 8, 2010.
[17]           “In Harm's Way: Lack of Federal Coal Ash Regulations Endangers Americans and their Environment,” by Environmental Integrity Project, EarthJustice, and Sierra Club, August 26, 2010, and EPA’s “Database of coal combustion waste surface impoundments (2009).” Information collected by EPA from industry responses to Information Collection Request letters issued to the companies on March 9, 2009.
[18]          “Department of the Environment Files Notice of Intent to Sue Mirant for Coal Combustion Byproducts Pollution,” Press Release by MD DPE, January 3, 2011.
[19]            From MD DPE: “Notice of Intent to File Citizen Suit for Violations of the Clean Water Act at the Mirant Faulkner Coal Combustion Waste Disposal Site in Charles County, Marvland,” and “Notice of Intent to File Citizen Suit for Violations of the Clean Water Act at the Mirant Westland Coal Combustion Waste Disposal Site in Montgomery Countv, Marvland,” both dated January 3, 2011.
[20]             At 5.2 tons/car. “Emission Facts: Greenhouse Gas Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle,” from Environmental Protection Agency, February 2005. Climate pollution emissions from Coal Swarm: http://www.coalswarm.org.
[21]            “Plans for 150 coal plants scrapped: Sierra Club,” Reuters. Feb 1, 2001.
[22]           Capacity factor calculated based on the Nameplate and Net Generation information provided by the Energy Information Administration. Nameplate comes from EIA form 860 (2008) and Net Generation from EIA for 923 (2008).
[23]          “The Toll from Coal: An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America's Dirtiest Energy Source,” Clean Air Task Force. September 2010.
[24]          “Energizing Virginia: Efficiency First,” American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. 2008.
[25]           Austin project developed by Seaholm Power, LLC. Chicago project developed by Charlie Shaw and the Homan Arthington Foundation.
[26]          Seaholm Power, LLC
[27]         Currently the GenOn Potomac River plant is the closest coal-fired power plant to Washington, DC. However, if Congress defunds the Greening the Capitol Project, it is possible the Capitol Power Plant, which heats the Capitol complex itself, may switch back to coal. “Rep. Whitfield Scores One for Coal, Stripping $1.5M From 'Greening the Capitol’” by John McArdle for Greenwire, New York Times. February 17, 2011.

For more information or questions, please contact genoffpotomac@gmail.com