15. AIR POLLUTION: Ky. utility brings court-ordered scrubbers online (06/03/2009)

Robin Bravender, E&E reporter

The East Kentucky Power Cooperative this week began operating the second of two major pollution-control components at its Spurlock power plant mandated by a 2007 legal settlement with the federal government.

Unit #1 at the plant near Maysville, Ky., began running a scrubber Monday aimed at removing nearly 95 percent of the unit's sulfur dioxide emissions, according to the utility.

The Winchester, Ky.-based utility agreed in 2007 to spend $654 million to install pollution controls to reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter at its Spurlock and Dale plants (E&ENews PM, July 2, 2007).

The agreement ended a lawsuit filed against the utility by the Bush administration in 2004 for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act's New Source Review provisions, which require companies doing major plant modifications to obtain permits and install new pollution controls.

The settlement required the utility to install equipment to slash sulfur emissions from Unit #1 by June 30, 2011. The company installed similar equipment last fall on Spurlock Unit #2.

"It'll help us achieve the levels that are required under the consent decree, and we felt this was the most affordable way to approach it," said Nick Comer, a spokesman for the East Kentucky cooperative. "We're looking forward to having it in operation."

Comer said the utility had planned to install the new scrubber, which cost about $170 million, prior to the legal settlement. The Unit #2 scrubber cost about $210 million, Comer said.

The East Kentucky Power Cooperative provides power to more than 500,000 customers in central and eastern Kentucky through 16 local electric cooperatives. The 1,118-megawatt Spurlock power station on the Ohio River is the cooperative's largest power plant.