DEQ experts call Wolverine plant ‘safe’ at public informational session at Rogers City
The public hearing process continues for the proposed Wolverine Power plant with the informational process coming right to Rogers City. Wolverine submitted its application for an air quality permit in September 2006 for the 600-megawatt facility it proposes to build in the Calcite quarry. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has issued a draft permit after reviewing that application for nearly one year and the 60-day public comment period is now in session. Public comment ends November 24. Last week?s meeting at Rogers City High School (RCHS) was set up by the DEQ as an information meeting on that draft permit. After a 20-minute presentation from the DEQ staff, members of the audience asked questions of the DEQ panelists.
David Nadolsky, former mayor of Rogers City, served as moderator for the session. He advised the audience that the DEQ would be answering questions and the evening was not to be used as a forum for statements or lectures. Public comments will be heard October 29 and 30 at RCHS or they can be submitted by mail or e-mail. Fire panelists sat at a table in front of about 150 chairs set on the gymnasium floor with one side of the bleachers pulled out. Several other DEQ staffers were in the audience as support with some coming to the front to answer questions on occasion.
Environmental engineer Melissa Byrnes began the DEQ presentation by offering a summary of fuel proposed to be used by Wolverine and air pollution control measures slated for used at the power plant. ?The fuels proposed to be used in the boilers (include) Powder River Basin coal. This coal is located in northern Wyoming and southeast Montana. (Also to be used is) Illinois basin coal located in Illinois, Indiana and west Kentucky. Petroleum coke, sometimes referred to as pet coke, is a by-product of the coking product used to refine crude oil into a lighter fuel. Biomass has been defined for this project as non-chemically treated wood, wood residue, bark, sawdust, wood chips, switchgrass, and processed pellets made from wood,? she said.
Controls on emissions
?The proposed plant will have continuous emissions monitors for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, mercury, and opacity,? Byrnes continued. ?The proposed emissions controls will consist of fabric filters, to control particulate matter, a polishing scrubber, to reduce sulfur oxides, selective non-catalytic reduction, to reduce nitrogen oxides and also will use good combustion practices, which will provide adequate fuel residence time, access oxygen and proper temperature which will insure complete combustion. These practices will control the formation of carbon monoxides and volatile organic compounds. Also activated carbon injection will be used to reduce mercury emissions.?
Emissions are closely regulated
Robert Sills, toxicology specialist for the DEQ, gave his views on health related impacts of proposed project. He called the Wolverine project, as proposed, ?safe.? ?It is my job to evaluate air emissions on a project like this and determine if they are going to be safe or not,? he said. He explained what goes into evaluating a complex permit for a power plant.
?When we look at a project like this, we look at all the air emissions that are coming out of the facility after they have passed through all the air pollution control equipment. We look at the point of emission and then we have modelers who evaluate where the emissions go and where are the air concentrations that people can be exposed to, coming out of a facility like this,? Sills said. ?We have laws and regulations that enable us to use human health risk assessment to make sure any air concentrations will be safe, that they will not pose any unacceptable risk of cancer or non-cancer effects. We have very, very good laws in this state that enable us to do a lot of this type of assessment that regulates sources beyond what the federal program allows us to do.? As a health assessment expert, Sills said this power plant would be safe and would be required to meet all state and federal regulations. ?When I look at this facility, all the air emissions and modeled impacts, my conclusion at this point is that it would be safe. All the air pollutants and the air concentrations in the ambient air, the air that people breathe, are at low enough levels that they meet all of the requirements of our rules and regulations,? he concluded.
Take a special look at lead
Although Sills does not think lead emissions are a cause for concern, he studied possibilities on a worst-case scenario and came up with conclusions. ?Exposure to lead can cause nuero-developmental effects. It can affect (children?s) IQ in their development. We are very concerned about this. We really critique it. We really analyze it. Lead is a naturally occurring thing. It is in everyone?s drinking water, food, and air at very low levels and it is in the soil at very low levels. We look at what would be the additional impact from a facility like this upon those levels that are already in the environment,? Sills said.
?After having done that evaluation, I find virtually no increase of exposure to children. My conclusion from that is that it is safe and it is not going to pose a threat to children?s exposure and their IQ. This is something that we take very seriously and I think the applicant does as well.?
DEQ monitors mercury
Mercury is high on the list of substances, which can harm humans and wildlife, Sills said. The DEQ has taken a special look at possible mercury emissions into the air and determined levels for the proposed power plant are far below what is considered dangerous. ?The biggest concern is that mercury can accumulate in fish and then when people go out and eat them they can get exposed to mercury. The department has a very high concern with addressing mercury in the state right now,? Sills explained.
?The pollution control equipment that is proposed (for the Wolverine project) will greatly control the amount of mercury released and would comply with a rule that we have proposed to regulate electric utilities like this.? Sills said studies were done to estimate mercury exposure on smaller lakes nearby and Lake Huron from the proposed power plant. No significant changes to increase naturally occurring mercury levels are predicted.
?My conclusion is that this is a safe situation. There is not a significant situation that would degrade the public health risk for people or fish-eating wildlife that would eat fish from these lakes in the future.? Sills said he studied everything that could be looked at as thoroughly as possible. ?Based on the laws that we operate under, I focused on all the most important issues and concerns an
DEQ meteorologist analysis
James Haywood, senior meteorologist for the DEQ in Lansing, has the job of trying to predict impact to the air from the proposed plant through complex computer modeling. He is a 20-year veteran of the DEQ and has worked with federal agencies on computer modeling projects. ?When I do that I want to err on the side of caution, so I take the worst possible case of everything that the facility is supposed to do and we feed that into the model,? Haywood said.
Those numbers are combined with other area facilities, along with other background information and the worst meteorological situations, which could occur. The simulations are then run for a simulated period of several years using those worst possible conditions. Even under those worst possible, but highly unlikely situations, the safety of the plant holds up. ?We found out that the predicted impacts of the ambient air is well below any of the thresholds that we have to look at for either the federal or the state regulatory agencies,? Haywood said. Nadolsky then asked questioners to come to the microphone or submit questions on cards, which were collected by DEQ personnel. More than 70 questions were presented at the meeting, with several of the questioners returning to the microphone multiple times. The meeting began at 5 p.m. and lasted until after 9 p.m. when the panelists answered all questions. Questioners ranged from local citizens and members of statewide environmental groups.