Marking a major milestone in the nation’s transition to clean energy, Sierra Club finalized an agreement that secures the retirement of the last coal-fired power plants in New England. The agreement between plant-owner Granite Shore Power, Sierra Club, U.S. EPA and the Conservation Law Foundation requires two coal units at Merrimack Station in Bow, New Hampshire totaling 460 megawatts to retire no later than June 1, 2028 and the two remaining 50 megawatt units at Schiller Station in Portsmouth, New Hampshire to retire by December 31, 2025. With the retirements of these units, the New England region will be officially coal-free!
Merrimack and Schiller’s coal-burning units historically have been among the largest sources of air and water pollution in New Hampshire. The plants’ sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution is not only harmful to people’s health, but also contributes to view-obstructing haze in New England’s wilderness areas. Their dated “once-through” cooling systems also damage local aquatic ecosystems by creating thermal shocks and directly harming aquatic life and even keeping segments of the Merrimack River unnaturally ice free in the cold New England winters.
Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program (ELP) has worked over many years and on multiple fronts to reduce the harm caused by these facilities. On the air pollution front, ELP spearheaded sulfur dioxide modeling efforts to show how far and wide this asthma-triggering air pollutant was spreading from Merrimack and Schiller’s smokestacks. We engaged with local communities and in state and federal ambient air quality and regional haze rulemaking proceedings, resulting in tighter emission limits at Merrimack.
ELP also engaged in docket after docket before the New Hampshire Public Utility Commission, highlighting Merrimack and Schiller’s failure to plan for forthcoming environmental compliance requirements and opposing the plants’ attempts to recover costs from ratepayers for dubious projects intended to extend the life of these coal-burners.
On the water side, ELP brought numerous challenges to address the pollution discharged by Merrimack and Schiller, and the impacts their thermal pollution has on the Merrimack and Piscataqua Rivers. (Schiller has a particularly colorful history of harming marine life with its cooling water system). ELP brought repeated mandamus actions before the First Circuit Court of Appeals to pressure EPA to update decades-old Clean Water Act permits for the two plants, and challenged EPA when it issued weak protections in those permits–including a successful appeal of the Merrimack permit.
Finally, the Club’s efforts across the region to secure investments in energy efficiency and expand the buildout of renewables have helped to undermine the unwarranted energy market support for coal-burners like Merrimack and Schiller. One of Merrimack’s primary sources of revenue has been ISO New England’s forward capacity market, which compensates suppliers for being available to generate electricity even if they rarely run. Over the last several years, ELP has advocated for policies to avoid excessive compensation through the capacity market, including the elimination of a market rule that prevented state-supported clean energy resources from fairly competing against fossil fueled resources like Merrimack. ELP also successfully overturned portions of an ISO New England winter reliability program that would have paid coal plants in the region millions of dollars for stockpiling coal onsite, regardless of the units’ ability to generate electricity during severe winter weather. ELP’s targeted attacks on these plants’ financial inefficiencies and public health impacts combined with the demonstration of better options (energy efficiency and renewables) showed Granite Shore Power that the only way forward is retiring their coal plants.
Sierra Club Environmental Law Program attorneys Zack Fabish, Sarah Krame, Josh Stebbins, and Casey Roberts have represented Sierra Club in proceedings challenging both pollution from Merrimack and Schiller and unfair rate recovery systems that propped up the plants economically. Sierra Club’s press release can be found here.