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Mayor, Falk decry proposed power plant's effect on Dane County
Operating Alliant Energy's proposed 300-megawatt, largely coal-fired power plant along the Mississippi River would worsen air quality in Dane County, which is already in violation of federal standards for particulate and ozone pollution, according to Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk.
In a June 30 letter to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, Cieslewicz and Falk faulted the agency's draft environmental impact statement (EIS) on the proposed Cassville power plant in Grant County for failure to assess the plant's affect on the county's current air quality and whether it would hinder local pollution-reduction measures.
In order to increase its base load capacity, Alliant has asked the PSC to approve construction of a coal- and biomass-fueled power plant alongside existing plants either in Cassville or near Portage. Alliant favors the Cassville, or Nelson Dewey, site, but due to prevailing winds it would have more environmental consequences for Dane County than the Portage site.
"Any increase in pollution levels in Dane County is a major concern because we are already very close to, or over, the designated safe levels for ozone and fine particulate matter," according to the letter.
Dane County has violated the new 24-hour fine particulate matter standard during the past three years, according to Department of Natural Resources monitoring, while other monitoring has indicating the county is "bumping up against" the eight-hour standard for ozone pollution. "Based on this monitoring we understand that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering designating Dane County (along with Columbia and Rock counties) as non-attainment" areas later this year, the letter stated.
The city and the county have invested staff and other resources and encouraged private business to voluntarily commit to pollution reduction measures in advance of the threatened EPA designation.
The draft EIS doesn't address the economic impact of being designated a non-attainment area, according to Jennifer Feyerherm, a Sierra Club director. More stringent pollution requirements, including buying pollution offsets, would be imposed on new businesses. Tourism events, such as the Madison Ironman competition, also would be adversely affected, Feyerherm said. Planners wouldn't forget the 2005 ozone alert here caused more athletes to quit the competition than any other event held worldwide that year, she said.
Failure to include the expectation that the county will be designated a nonattainment area this summer means "the public cannot be expected to comment meaningfully" on the draft EIS, Feyerherm stated.
Fine particulate matter is regulated because it contributes to soot and smog pollution. Feyerherm urged the Department of Natural Resource to conduct modeling to determine what affect Cassville plant operations would have on air quality attainment standards in Grant and Dane counties. She noted that the Clean Air Act prohibits construction of a new facility that would cause a county to fall into nonattainment status.
The Sierra Club has questioned whether Alliant's current Cassville and Columbia plants are complying with EPA air quality regulation in complaints filed with the agency. Violations at existing plants will make it difficult to obtain permits for a new plant, Feyerherm noted.
Alliant spokesman Rob Crain said the air quality concerns that local leaders have said are missing in the draft EIS are being addressed by the utility throughout its service territory. Alliant is installing scrubbers at the existing Nelson Dewey plant that will reduce nitrogen and sulphur oxides and is committing to further reducing emissions at this plant and others in the state.
"When all is said and done Nelson Dewey will be two times larger (than the existing plant) but will result in a 90 percent reduction in NoX (nitrogen oxides), 55 percent reduction in SoX (sulphur oxides) and at least a 75 percent reduction in mercury," Crain said.
A call to Cieslewicz's spokesman George Twigg wasn't returned before deadline.
PSC spokesperson Teresa Weidemann-Smith said comments on a draft EIS are considered in preparing the final EIS. There is no timetable to produce a final EIS. Public hearings on the power plant proposals will be held in September, and a final decision is expected in December.
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