Power Plant Nearing Deadline for Less Pollution

BEESLEY’S POINT- The operators of the B. L. England power generating plant here face a May 1 deadline to reduce the amount of pollution from its coal-fired boilers or face a shut down.
Gov. Chris Christie has the option of granting an extension on waivers on clean air standards to the plant’s operators as he has done once in the past.
A ground swell of protest in the way of online petitions from environmental groups is asking Christie to shut down the plant.
According to the Sierra Club, the power plant has been fouling the air, in particular for Ocean City residents for more than 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 plant has two coal burning units, one equipped with a scrubber, one without and a unit burning bunker oil. The Clean Air Task Force report notes: “among all industrial sources of air pollution, none poses greater risks to human health and the environment than coal-fired plants.”
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.
In May 2011, Christie put in place a ban on new coal fired power plants in the state. He pressured the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce pollution from Pennsylvania’s Portland Coal Plant which drifts into New Jersey.
The B.L. England plant is owned by Rockland Capital, a private equity firm focused on energy-related investments, which did not return phone calls or an email sent by the Herald. Rockland purchased the plant from Pepco Holdings/Atlantic City Electric in 2006 for $12.2 million.
The Herald called a local phone number for RC Cape May Holdings LLC, the plant’s parent company, listed as a private company in Marmora involved in wholesale power transmission equipment.
An employee said he would check with the plant manager. The employee told the Herald the plant was “currently in negotiations with the state and the results of those negotiations will be known in four to six weeks.”
In January, Rockland Capital announced R.C Holdings reached an agreement to sell its solar development rights at the B.L. England plant and was executing a long term lease with Greentech Global Energy. According to a press release, Greentech will construct an approximately 4 megawatt solar panel generating facility on an abandoned golf course next to the plant. The solar produced energy is a pittance compared to B.L. England plant’s output of 447 megawatts of power
A park will be developed along with the solar array.
In May 2011, Christie withdrew the state from a mandatory cap and trade program entitled the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). He said the program did not work and increased taxes.
Ocean City Activist Dr. Steven Fenichel told the Herald after Rockland Capitol purchased the B.L. England plant, it claimed it could not make modifications to the facility to clean soot from the chimney stacks as it has promised to do because of the downturn in the economy.
“So they got a waiver from the New Jersey government which expires December 31, 2012,” said Fenichel.
He said they could circumvent the deadline by beginning to do the necessary corrections which “take a lot more time than they’ve given themselves now.”
The other possibility is they will appeal for another waiver “at which point hopefully the citizens will come forth to stop them.”
Fenichel said Rockland could shut down B.L. England and pursue burning natural gas. He said that also presents a problem to environmentally conscious people due to the practice of “fracking.”
Fenichel said he sent a proposed resolution to all members of the Ocean City Council asking them to tell Christie to shut down B. L. England.
In 2010, the Clean Air Task Force prepared a report entitled the “Toll from Coal” in which Ocean City and 500 other communities in the U.S. were examined in regards to hospital admissions, mortality, asthma admissions to emergency rooms, heart disease, chronic bronchitis and malignancies, he said.
“Of 500 coal-burning power plants, Ocean City happens to be downwind from the B. L. England plant with those tall chimneys,” said Fenichel. “Ocean City was 14th in America with the highest mortality and morbidity associated with the toxic emissions from a coal-burning power plant.”
Fenichel said the top 15 mortality risks included cities such as Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Pa., and cities in West Virginia “but low and behold, an idyllic little beach community with the ocean breezes is 14th on that list.”
“It was such a shock when I saw that,” he said.
He recommends citizens contact the governor by email and phone and the county Board of Freeholders to urge shutdown of the B.L England plant.
Christine Guhl, Sierra Club NJ Beyond Coal organizing representative, told the Herald the B.L England plant faced a May 1 pollution limit deadline in order to comply with state air quality standards. She said there were separate deadlines for the plant’s two coal burning units.
Guhl said the plant typically runs in summer when the county’s population swells and energy needs are the highest. She said the plant needs to install scrubbers to remove sulfur dioxide which is a costly project. The plant did install equipment to remove mercury from the output of the smokestacks some years ago.
PSE&G spent $1 billion on pollution control for two plants in Trenton and Jersey City, said Guhl.
“They can’t meet the sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide standards without either putting in pollution controls or repowering,” she said of B. L. England.
Switching to natural gas to produce power would be a long, expensive project, said Guhl. She said Rockland was aware the plant needed modifications to meet clean air standards when they purchased B.L. England.
Guhl suggests the plant could be replaced by the Fisherman’s Energy offshore wind turbine project. She said B.L. England could be shut down gradually as other power sources become available such as solar energy.
The plant is old and “incredibly inefficient,” according to Guhl.
“If they can’t install pollution controls, then it’s time to retire it,” she said.
Sierra Club’s online petition is available at: http://action.sierraclub.org/RetireBLEngland.
Could Cape May County and Atlantic City Electric survive without the output of the B.L. England plant?
Atlantic City Electric spokesman Bill Yingling said the company buys electricity on behalf of its customers through the state supervised BGS auction process.
“As a result, we don’t know where the generating source of the power that we purchase, we don’t know specifically the generating source,” he said.