BEESLEY’S POINT — The operator of the B. L. England power generating plant here has agreed to convert the coal burning and oil burning plant to natural gas.
The operators of the B. L. England plant, Rockland Capital/ RC Cape May Holdings LLC, faced a May 1 deadline to reduce the amount of pollution from its coal-fired boilers or face a shut down.
Gov. Chris Christie had granted an extension on waivers on clean air standards to the plant’s operator.
State Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Larry Hajna told the Herald DEP was finalizing an agreement. He said the agreement calls for the conversion of the plant’s Unit Two to natural gas.
Unit One, which has virtually no air pollution controls, will be retired at the end of 2013, he said.
Hajna said Unit Three, which is only used during peak demand hours for electricity, would also be converted to natural gas. It currently burns oil, he said.
“This is going to result in dramatic long-term air quality improvements for the region,” said Hajna. “Natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel.”
The turbines to be installed in the plant will be state-of-the art, he said.
An administrative consent order has not yet been issued. Hajna said the time frame for converting the units at the B. L. England plant would be spelled out in the consent order, which will be finalized in the next few weeks.
The plant was under a previous administrative consent order and amendments to add additional pollution control equipment to Unit Two. Hajna said the new administrative consent order for natural gas conversion will supercede the previous order.
He said the shutdown of Unit One and conversion of units two and three is not expected to diminish the capacity of the power plant. Hajna said the B. L. England plant does not operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week even its current configuration.
It operates on an as needed basis, he said. The plant sells power to the grid not necessarily to Atlantic City Electric for use in Cape May County.
“I think it wouldn’t have happened without pressure from the public including the Sierra Club and a lot of the people who live in the area,” said Jeff Tittel, Director, NJ Sierra Club. “It is one of the largest sources of air pollution in South Jersey.”
He said the plant was a problem for air quality in Ocean City.
“Mercury from that plant gets into the fisheries because its right on the bay, it impacts health, especially people with asthma, in Ocean City, Atlantic City and all along the coast,” said Tittel.
He said the Sierra Club has been fighting the plant for some time and opposed the extensions it received from DEP to keep operating without cleaning up the operation.
“We think this is an important step forward,” said Tittel. “In a perfect world, we would rather see the plant close and become an onshore facility for offshore wind.”
“Getting rid of that dirty plant is a real victory,” he continued.
Tittel questions if the B.L. England plant will continue to burn coal for a couple of more summers before conversion to natural gas.
The power plant has been in operation for 50 years. According to the Clean Air Task Force, the B.L. England plant is responsible for an estimated 300 asthma attacks, 32 heart attacks and 13 premature deaths each year.
The Environmental Protection Agency released a green house gas emissions inventory list for 2010. B. L. England was ranked 12th on a list of the top 20 polluters in the state for producing 603,727 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
