Maria Hegstad, The Examiner
2007-08-01 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

Alexandria -

A federal public health agency has completed six weeks of monitoring around the coal-burning Mirant power plant in Alexandria.

The 55-year-old power plant has been a point of contention for several years. The city views the plant, which emits sulfur and other particles into the air, as a health hazard. The plant operators say it is operating within the law and provides needed power to the region.

Results from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s study won’t be available until 2008. The large amount of data collected must be analyzed for several metals, including lead and mercury, said Deborah Gable, an environmental health scientist with the agency.

In January 2006, the director of Alexandria’s health department asked the agency to study the plant’s emissions and the effect they have on residents.

“Our specific concern was whether or not emissions were causing a public health threat,” health director Dr. Charles Konigsberg said.

So agency staff set up a network of 10 monitoring stations in a one-mile radius around the plant in June. For six weeks, the stations monitored sulfur and other particles in the air near the plant.

Neither the health department nor the agency have any regulatory control over the power plant, Konigsberg and Werner said. That authority lies with Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality and its five-member citizen Air Pollution Control Board.

In May, the board set new temporary restrictions on the plant’s operations, which took effect July 1. Mirant protested the guidelines, which were supported by city staff.

Mirant officials said regulations they negotiated with DEQ staff would offer better protection. That agreement includes allowing Mirant to merge the plant’s five smokestacks into two. Forcing all of the emissions out of fewer stacks would cause them to leave the plant at greater speed and would disperse the particles more widely, Mirant officials said.

The Air Control Board is expected to consider a long-term operating permit for the plant and the stack merge when it meets this fall. Mirant did not return a request seeking comment on the agency’s study.