Georgia is the ninth dirtiest state as measured by emissions from coal-fired power plants, an environmental advocacy group said Wednesday in a report aimed at influencing congressional debate over mercury regulations.
The state’s emissions contain 18.2 million pounds of toxins -- mercury, metals and acid gases -- 44 percent of which come from coal-fired power plants, according to the Natural Resource Defense Council report. It also put Georgia Power’s Plant Branch, in Milledgeville, at No. 10 on the list of the nation’s most polluting coal and oil fired plants.
The NRDC is a nonprofit advocacy group formed in 1970. The group used annual toxic emission data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency That data is based on information supplied by industries and companies including Atlanta-based Southern Co., which owns Georgia Power.
Georgia Power, asked for comment on the report, said it plans to close or convert some of the coal units and has added equipment to others to cut toxic emissions.
The data in the report is from 2009 and is the most recent available. The NRDC released its report Tuesday to call attention to the EPA’s proposal to regulate mercury as well as attempts in Congress to block it. Mercury, one of the emissions that come from power plants, can contribute to asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory diseases.
Georgia Power has spent more than $3.7 billion in environmental control equipment, a spokeswoman said. The equipment has helped cut mercury emissions by more than 65 percent, sulfur dioxide emissions by more than 75 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than 75 percent, said Konswello Monroe, a Georgia Power spokeswoman.
The utility has said it plans to close two of four coal-fired units at Plant Branch. Plant McDonough’s two coal units are being converted to three natural gas units.
Georgia Power also has installed pollution-control equipment on some of its coal-fired units at Bowen and Hammond, Scherer and Wansley. It will have 26 units with equipment to reduce emissions by 2016, Monroe said.
The top 10 states on NRDC’s Toxic 20 list are: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Indiana, Michigan, West Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina.
The list “indirectly reflects population,” said Peter Altman, NRDC’s campaign climate director. “It gets tied to how much demand for power is there on any given state and then how they meet that power and how the power plants in that state install pollution controls.”
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