Charleston Gazette:

February 8, 2012

3 W.Va. plants latest to close under utility restructuring

The Charleston Gazette

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Three FirstEnergy power plants in West Virginia will close in September in the latest move by a utility to shutter decades-old units that can't meet new federal air quality standards that limit mercury and other toxic pollutants.

Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy said it would shut down the Albright Power Station in Preston County, the Rivesville Power Station in Marion County and the Willow Island Power Station in Pleasants County.

Together, seven boilers at the three plants have electric generating capacity of about 660 megawatts, about the equivalent of a medium-sized modern coal plant.

All three facilities date back to the 1940s and 1950s. They were not equipped with the latest pollution control devices, and FirstEnergy used all three in recent years on a very limited basis to provide power in times of peak demand.

James R. Haney, president of West Virginia operations for FirstEnergy, cited high costs to implement the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards as the reason for his company's action.

FirstEnergy said 105 employees at the plants are affected, but that some will be considered for openings within the company or may accept special retirement packages.

The EPA air toxics rule has become a new focus for industry officials, coalfield business groups and regional political leaders who complain the Obama administration is waging a "war on coal" aimed at shutting down all mining.

"This is another example of how the EPA is costing us good jobs in West Virginia and throughout Appalachia," Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said in a prepared statement.

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson says the rule was needed to cut emissions of mercury and toxic air pollutants like arsenic and cyanide. EPA estimates the new standards will prevent up to 96 premature deaths in West Virginia, while creating up to $790 million in health benefits in 2016.

Also, EPA officials note that proven pollution controls are already available -- and in use at more than half of the nation's power plants -- to meet the new limits.

FirstEnergy, for example, has announced no plans to close three of its much larger plants in West Virginia, Fort Martin Power Station in Monongalia County, Harrison Power Station north of Clarksburg, and Pleasants Power Station, located adjacent to Willow Island.

"When the older coal-fired plants are retired and removed from FirstEnergy's competitive and regulated generating fleet, nearly 100 percent of the power provided will come from resources that are non- or low-emitting, including nuclear, hydro, pumped-storage hydro, natural gas and scrubbed coal units," FirstEnergy said in a prepared statement.

Last month, the West Virginia Sierra Club sponsored a meeting in Preston County, to try to begin a discussion among local citizens and FirstEnergy about the Albright plant's future, the impact of a potential closure, and other economic opportunities for the area.

FirstEnergy officials did not attend, because the company had not yet announced a final decision on the facility.

"Our goal was to engage FirstEnergy in a discussion about beginning a transition to cleaner energy sources," said the Sierra Club's Jim Kotcon. "There is a lot of concern there. FirstEnergy is a major taxpayer in the county."

Kotcon said the meeting was modeled in part after work the Sierra Club did that led to a deal last year with TransAlta to phase out Washington State's only coal-fired power plant and create a $60 million fund to help the community there transition away from economic reliance on the facility.

"We think something like that has to happen in a lot of areas," Kotcon said. "We see a continued decision to reduce use of coal-fired electricity as the health impacts become more obvious.

Kotcon noted that FirstEnergy's closure date for the three West Virginia plants, as well as six other plants in Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania, was Sept. 1, 2012, two years before the first compliance dates in EPA's new air toxics rule.

FirstEnergy spokesman Mark Durbin said his company chose the closer closure date because it couldn't justify additional capital expenditures for maintenance and other projects at the West Virginia plants if they were going to close in a few years anyway.

But when American Electric Power announced similar plant closures in West Virginia, it set the deadline as Dec. 31, 2014, when the EPA rules were expected to kick in.

Kotcon said public officials and companies in the coalfields need to give workers and communities more time to ease such transitions as coal production drops and more plants move away from coal. "It's important to being the path toward transition so we don't end up with more communities where a company just announces they are closing a plant," Kotcon said.

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1702.

THE STATE JOURNAL:

FirstEnergy to snuff Albright, Rivesville, Willow Island plants

Posted: Feb 08, 2012 10:20 AM EST Updated: Feb 08, 2012 1:21 PM EST

By Pam Kasey

FirstEnergy announced Feb. 8 that 105 employees will be affected when its Monongahela Power Co. subsidiary retires its three oldest, least efficient and most polluting power plants in the state later this year.

Albright Power Station in Preston County, Willow Island Power Station in Pleasants County and Rivesville Power Station in Marion County are to be closed by Sept. 1, the company said in a media release.

The company cited environmental regulations as its reason for closing the plants.

All are more than 50 years old and all are without advanced environmental controls and their closure has been widely expected.

Some of the 105 affected employees will be considered for open positions at other FirstEnergy locations, the media release said.

Severance benefits will apply to those eligible, and an additional unspecified benefit is being offered to those who are eligible for retirement, the company said.

The three plants total 660 megawatts of generating capacity, about 3 percent of FirstEnergy's generation portfolio. Because they are expensive to run, though, they serve mostly as peaking plants and generate on average less than 1 percent of electricity produced by the company over the past three years.

Among West Virginia-based power plants, the three facilities represented about two-tenths of a percent of generation and about 1 percent of coal burned for power in 2010.

FirstEnergy announced last month that it would retire six older coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland by Sept. 1. Those plants total 2,700 megawatts' capacity and their closures affect 529 employees.

The company said that, since the Clean Air Act became law in 1970, FirstEnergy and its predecessor companies have invested more than $10 billion in environmental protection. Since 1990, it has reduced emissions of nitrogen oxides by more than 76 percent, sulfur dioxide by more than 86 percent and mercury by about 56 percent.

After Sept. 1, when these nine plants have been retired, nearly 100 percent of FirstEnergy's power will come from resources that are non- or low-emitting, including nuclear, hydro, pumped-storage hydro, natural gas and scrubbed coal units.

Gov. Early Ray Tomblin issued a statement following the announcement urging the EPA to reconsider the effect of environmental regulations.

"This is another example of how the EPA is costing us good jobs in West Virginia and throughout Appalachia," Tomblin said. "When the EPA adopts regulations they continue to fail to take into account the real-life effects these rules have on hard working Americans like those who have dedicated themselves to First Energy at the West Virginia locations. I urge the EPA to respectfully and accurately review the entire impact of their decisions-from environmental to economical- because individuals, families and communities are forever changed by their short-sighted decisions."

DOMINION POST Thursday 9 February 2011:

Albright Power Station to close Sept. 1

Its 61 employees can apply for other FirstEnergy jobs

BY MICHELLE WOLFORD
The Dominion Post

   KINGWOOD — FirstEnergy announced Wednesday it will close its Albright Power Station on Sept. 1.
   Also to be closed are the Willow Island and Rivesville facilities.
   Willow Island is 22 miles from Parkersburg on the Ohio River. The Rivesville plant is on the Monongahela River in Marion County.
   Ray Evans, executive director of FirstEnergy’s Environmental division, said the employees — 61 at Albright, nine at Rivesville and 35 at Willow Island — can bid on other positions with the company, accept an enhanced retirement package or accept a severance package.
   The announcement came just two weeks after the company announced it would close six coal-fired plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
   Those closings will impact more than 500 employees.
   New Environmental Protection Agency Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) set to take effect in 2015 are the reason for the plant shutdowns.
   “We looked at the MATS and we didn’t see a way forward for [the Albright] plant,” Evans said.
   “The high cost to implement MATS and other environmental rules is the reason these Mon Power plants are being retired,” James R. Haney, regional president of Mon Power and president of West Virginia operations for FirstEnergy, said in a statement.
   After Sept. 1, the company will secure the plant from unauthorized access, remove the chemicals and make sure all ongoing environmental obligations are met, Evans said. “In the next four to five years, we’ll be coming up with strategies for reuse of the plant. We have no firm plans now for this site.”

Economic impact

   Robbie Baylor, executive director of the Preston County Economic Development Authority, said the agency is saddened to learn of plans to retire the Albright facility.
   “The Albright Station has been a stable contributor to the economy of Preston County for over 50 years,” Baylor said. “It will be difficult to replace the jobs and the revenue the station and the people working at the station bring to the Preston County community. We plan to work with Mon Power and the County Commission to make this closure as unproblematic as possible for all concerned. We have already offered to provide any assistance needed to help workers at the plant find alternate employment if they choose not to stay with Mon Power after the Albright facility closes.”
   Preston County Commissioners called the announcement “a blow” to the community.
   “Our first concern is with the families of those who will lose their jobs,” said Commission President Craig Jennings. Also impacted will be the “trickle down” industries — those who do business directly with the plant including trucking companies and tire shops, stores whose customers come from those businesses.
   “It’s a blow to us as elected officials and the fiscal agents of the county. It’s a blow to those who are losing their jobs, some of them the second generation working there. We’ve got a lot to do. This is the third major loss to the county [Mathews Bronze cut its workforce and Whitetail Mine shut down in 2009] and its hard to replace those.”
   “It’s a hard hit for the community and those employees,” Commissioner Dave Price said.
   Jennings said commissioners plan to meet with FirstEnergy “to ask them to at least fulfill their obligation to the schools for the bond. If they don’t help with that, it will fall back to the taxpayers.”
   The economic impact of the plant’s closing isn’t clear, Baylor said, though she said FirstEnergy did tell her it paid $2.7 million in taxes to West Virginia for the Albright plant alone.
   The taxes to be paid to the state in 2013 as the result of plant retirement is estimated at $48,000, Baylor said the company told her. She said it was unknown how much would be returned to Preston County.
   Preston County Assessor Terri Funk said she asked the State Tax Department for “its best estimate of what we would lose annually if we would lose the power plant.” The estimate is $849,196, including about $19,400 to the city of Kingwood. Each of the county’s municipalities also receives utility taxes from that money, as does the board of education.
   Marion County Assessor Jim Priester said that county saw “a $12 million loss in property value last year,” but couldn’t provide a dollar amount lost.

‘It makes me sad’

   Charlie Wilson, of Kingwood, worked at both the Rivesville and Albright plants, and was at Albright in 1952 when the power station went online. He retired in 1982.
   “I started at Rivesville in August of 1951 when I got out of the service,” he said. “It was an old plant then. It was 1919 when it first went online.”
   The Albright Power Station “operated pedal to the metal for many, many years,” he said, but “it has gotten old and not nearly as efficient as some of the newer units. As new stations came on, Albright carried less and less of a load.”
   When he learned the plant is slated to be retired in September, Wilson said, “It makes me sad for the people that are going to be disrupted by it.”
   The plant “was a good part of my life,” the 84-yearold said. “It provided a good, steady job and decent wages, and an opportunity to provide for myself and my family. I’ll say this about that plant: I was never on strike and never missed a day’s work that was the company’s fault, and I never missed a payday.”
   “I hate to see the plant close, but the biggest factor has to be the environmental considerations. It just wouldn’t be cost-efficient to put scrubbers on it,” Wilson said. A $50 million grant to the Sierra Club, which the nonprofit boasted would be used to shut down coal-fired plants, probably didn’t help the plant’s chance of survival, he said.

Lawmakers react

   “This is another example of how the EPA is costing us good jobs in West Virginia and throughout Appalachia,” Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said in a release. “When the EPA adopts regulations they continue to fail to take into account the real-life effects these rules have on hard working Americans like those who have dedicated themselves to FirstEnergy at the West Virginia locations. I urge the EPA to respectfully and accurately review the entire impact of their decisions — from environmental to economical — because individuals, families and communities are forever changed by their short-sighted decisions.”
   Delegate Larry Williams, D-Preston, said FirstEnergy told him it would take $300 million to upgrade the Albright plant to new EPA standards. Converting to natural gas is also not cost-effective for the company, he said.
   Williams said he also asked about demolition, if that’s in the works, and water impoundment.
   “These are questions that need to be part of the planning and analysis of what’s going to happen at that site,” he said.
   Williams said he met with Tomblin’s office about the plant closing. The governor’s office will offer economic development personnel to work with Preston County’s Economic Development Authority to see what jobs and businesses can be brought to the county.

REPORTER DAVID BEARD

contributed to this article.

Sierra Club: Closings a victory for clean air

BY MICHELLE WOLFORD
The Dominion Post

   KINGWOOD — The closing of three power plants in West Virginia is “a victory for clean air and local residents’ health,” a Sierra Club release said.
   The three plants — Albright, Rivesville and Willow Island, near Parkersburg — are slated for retirement Sept. 1 as a result of new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, according to FirstEnergy, which owns the power stations.
   “In total, these closures will bring 660 megawatts of dirty, dangerous pollution to an end,” Sierra Club said. “The retirements represent a major improvement in the lives of local residents, who have been exposed to the pollution from these plants for decades.
   “Pollution from coal-fired power plants contributes to respiratory illnesses and asthma attacks, heart disease and cancer. Closure of these three plants will prevent approximately 40 premature deaths, 64 heart attacks and 620 asthma attacks, according to the Clean Air Task Force,” the release said.
   “This is good news for West Virginia, because those plants will no longer be polluting our air and water like they have been for 60 years,” said Jim Sconyers, chairman of the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club. “We want to ensure that the company has made a commitment to their workforce’s welfare once these plants close.”
   “Closing these old dirty plants is only the beginning of the responsibility that FirstEnergy owes to the surrounding communities. Instead of using public health safeguards as an excuse for the closure of three old and unnecessary plants, they need to increase investments in energy efficiency and create new jobs to assist the workers and community with a smooth transition to a clean energy future,” said Sierra Club Environmental Justice Organizing Representative Bill Price.
   The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign works in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies and a nationwide coalition to retire onethird of the nation’s aging coal plants by 2020, replacing them with clean energy such as wind and solar by 2030, according to the release.
   The environmental group, along with West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, has sued FirstEnergy over “the illegal construction of Albright’s coal ash dumps.”
   In January, it hosted a forum in Albright to discuss the future of the plant. FirstEnergy did not send a representative, but Preston County Commissioners and local members of the state legislature attended.
   “These three plants bring the tally of coal plant retirements to 95 since the Sierra Club began its Beyond Coal campaign in 2002,” according to the release.
   Charles Wilson, of Kingwood, worked at both Rivesville and Albright for 30 years before his retirement in 1982. He said the Sierra Club bragged when it got the Bloomberg grant that “they could use it to close these coal-fired plants.”
   “Renewable power sources such as wind, solar and hydro can’t sustain the electrical grid as we know it, and demand that it be without the steady, versatile and reliable generation furnished by fossil fuel plants and nuclear. These furnish 50-60 percent of the nation’s base load,” Wilson said. “I think people want to do away with reliable generation before there is something to replace it. It was probably a factor in the closing of the Albright plant.”