TVA Gets Ready to Clean the Air at John Sevier
Bristol Herald Courier Staff Editorial
Published: April 7, 2008
Updated: April 8, 2008
Depending on the wind direction, Bristol and the surrounding communities breathe in the pollution of not one, but two aging, coal-fired power plants.Published: April 7, 2008
Updated: April 8, 2008
Now comes word that one of the plants will clean up its act. The Tennessee Valley Authority will spend $597 million to install scrubbers at its John Sevier Fossil Plant near Rogersville. This is a long-overdue upgrade.
The other plant, American Electric Power’s Clinch River Plant at Carbo is under court order to reduce its emissions by the end of 2009. If AEP has taken steps to comply with the court order, it has kept them a secret.
Not so TVA. The publicly owned utility – which is facing litigation from the state of North Carolina over air pollution – has been open about its plans for John Sevier. At its most recent meeting, the TVA’s board of directors set aside funding for smokestack scrubbers at the plant. Work is set to be finished by 2012.
The 712-megawatt John Sevier plant began burning coal to produce power in 1957. Pollution control measures have improved and environmental standards have changed in the intervening years.
The TVA has failed to keep up with those changes. This delay has harmed the environment. Emissions from the John Sevier plant are a prime factor in the haze that obscures views in the Smoky Mountains in the summer, and the pollution has contributed to acid rain which has killed trees in the popular national park.
On its Web site, the TVA catalogs the environmental insults caused by John Sevier. Each year, its smokestacks belch out 30,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 9,700 tons of nitrogen oxide, 5,100 tons of carbon dioxide and 450 tons of other toxins, including mercury, lead and various acids, into the air.
These pollutants cause a variety of problems. Sulfur dioxide contributes to acid rain. Nitrogen oxide is a prime component in ground-level ozone, which causes respiratory problems. Carbon dioxide is linked to global warming. Other pollutants, like mercury and lead, are particularly harmful to pregnant women and children.
It isn’t clear why the TVA waited so long to retrofit John Sevier. Perhaps it was the threat of litigation from a neighboring state that shamed the company into action. Perhaps TVA directors realized the next presidential administration – no matter which party wins – will do more to protect the environment than the Bush administration, which has bent over backward to appease corporate America and other big polluters.
In the end, the motivation doesn’t matter. The Tennessee Valley Authority is finally taking steps to reduce pollution, protect the health of area residents and improve conditions in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
A reduction in emissions at John Sevier also will help with ozone levels in Sullivan County, which are not in compliance with stricter ozone limits set by the Environmental Protection Administration earlier this year. Cleaning up John Sevier is likely to have a far greater impact than any other step that could be taken to meet the new ozone targets.
We urge the TVA to move quickly. This is work that should have been done years ago. The same can be said of AEP’s Carbo plant. It must be cleaned up or shut down.
It’s time to quit making excuses for the nation’s aging coal plants. Coal isn’t a cheap energy source if it is burned in such a way that it destroys national treasures, like the Smokies, or kills innocent people who have the misfortune of living too close to antiquated power plants.
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