Maria Hegstad, The Examiner
2007-06-25 07:00:00.0
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Alexandria -

Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality is expected to decide this week whether the Mirant power company may merge some of the smokestacks on its Alexandria plant.

The move is controversial because it is linked to a request to substantially increase — perhaps more than triple — the emissions coming out of the plant.

The coal-fired power plant has five boilers, each with an individual stack. Last year, Mirant asked to vent the boilers through two stacks. The increased velocity created by more exhaust exiting from fewer stacks improves the dispersion of the plant’s emissions, Mirant officials have said. Alexandria city staff are concerned Mirant will move to increase production — and pollution — if the stacks are merged.

City officials have tried to close the plant, which they’ve deemed a health hazard. Their efforts have failed, in part, because the plant provides backup power to the District and Maryland and has been seen as necessary.

When Mirant requested to merge the stacks last year, the Department of Environmental Quality performed a preliminary analysis and determined that a permit would be necessary, DEQ spokesman Bill Hayden said.

The department is now “strongly leaning” toward removing that obstacle. Department staff and attorney general officials no longer think the department has the authority to issue a permit because the stack merge would not increase air emissions, Hayden said.

The change in thinking is based on careful reading of studies Mirant produced, he said.

But Bill Skrayback, division chief of the city’s environmental services department, is concerned.

“How can you say it doesn’t need a permit when you don’t know the effects?” he asked Friday.

While fewer stacks will disperse the pollution better if all five boilers are operating, its unknown how well two stacks would disperse emissions if fewer boilers are running, he said.

mhegstad@dcexaminer.com