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Settlement Includes Largest School Bus Pollution Control Project in Country
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice announced
that they have reached a $6 million enforcement case settlement with a local
power plant that will result in significant air quality improvements for Boston
school children and North Shore commuters, as well as a restored salt marsh
in Chelsea and construction of a new commuter bike path across the Mystic River
that will link Everett and Somerville.In a settlement stemming from air quality
violations over a five-year period at the Mystic Station power plant in Everett,
plant owner Exelon Mystic LLC has agreed to pay a $1 million civil penalty and
fund more than $5 million of environmental projects in the Boston area. The
settlement was filed in U.S. District Court in Boston.
Located just over the Boston city line, the 2,600-megawatt Mystic Station power
plant includes three 1950s-era oil fired units (400 megawatts total), a larger
primarily oil-fired unit (600 megawatts) built in the 1970s, and two brand new
units (1,600 megawatts total) that burn only natural gas. EPA’s complaint
alleged over 6,000 violations of the Clean Air Act’s opacity limits at
the four oil-fired units from June 1998 to November 2003. Opacity is a measure
of smoke thickness, and is regulated to prevent visible air pollutants such
as soot and other particulate matter from polluting the air. Most of the violations
took place at the three oldest units, which virtually ceased operations in March
2003.
Fine particulate matter from combustion sources such as power plants is a serious
public health concern, particularly for sensitive populations such as children,
the elderly and asthmatics. Asthma is the leading cause of childhood emergency
room hospitalizations in Boston. In some Boston neighborhoods, including Roxbury
and Dorchester, asthma rates are more than double the state average.
After EPA issued a Notice of Violation in 2001 and a Compliance Order in 2002,
Mystic spent over $2.5 million on new equipment and operating procedures, which
dramatically improved the plant’s compliance with opacity regulations and
reduced its particulate emissions.
Under the settlement Exelon will pay a $1 million fine and spend over $5.1
million on five local environmental projects. The projects include:
• Spend $3.25 million to retrofit school buses with pollution reduction
devices and supply them with ultra low sulfur diesel fuel for two years. Exelon
is planning to work with the City of Boston and aims to retrofit over 500 school
buses by September 2005. The project builds on a similar bus retrofit in an
EPA enforcement settlement three years ago with Waste Management of Massachusetts
Inc., which has nearly finished retrofitting 100 Boston school buses with pollution
control equipment. Together, the two projects will retrofit virtually the entire
Boston school bus fleet. Estimated emission reductions over the first two years
of the Exelon project are over 4.5 tons of particulate matter, over 12 tons
of smog-causing hydrocarbons, and over 41 tons of carbon monoxide.
• Spend $1.25 million to equip diesel locomotive engines of 15 to 20 commuter
rail trains operating out of Boston’s North Station rail terminal with
oxidation catalysts (to reduce particulate matter) and supply the trains with
low-sulfur diesel fuel for three years. The result will be cleaner air for the
47,000 passengers who ride the North Station commuter trains each day, and for
the residents of the many communities through which the trains pass. Over three
years, the project will reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 258 tons and particulate
matter by 44 tons.
• Spend $250,000 on a project with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation
and Recreation to build a commuter bike path link over the Amelia Earhart Dam
on the Mystic River. The project will connect Everett and Somerville and link
several existing and planned bike paths in Medford, Everett, Somerville and
Charlestown. The project will encourage commuter bike traffic on metropolitan
area bike paths, thereby reducing air pollutants from automobile exhaust.
• Spend $118,000 to fund an environmental assessment and feasibility study
to identify possible restoration activities along the Malden River, including
the identification and potential restoration/replication of lost or degraded
wetlands habitat.
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