Melissa Williams, melissa.williams@sierraclub.org
ATLANTA, GA—The Sierra Club and its allies have filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of Fulton County demanding that state regulators protect Georgia’s drinking water and rivers from mercury, arsenic, and other dangerous pollutants by updating long-expired permits on five Georgia Power Co., coal-fired power plants.
Four groups, on behalf of thousands of members and supporters statewide, have filed suit to compel the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to revise and update expired National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) permits on Georgia’s coal plants. The groups sent letters urging action by EPD in March 2016 and again in the fall, but got no response.
NPDES permits have a maximum term of five years to ensure regular re-evaluations of the most recent pollution control technologies, and whether new and improved technologies have become available that would justify tighter permit limits.
Yet the permits for Plants Bowen, Hammond, McIntosh, Scherer and Wansley have all languished for well beyond their expiration dates. In fact, the permits for Wansley, Scherer, and McIntosh have all been expired for more than five years, with McIntosh’s permit expiring in 2004.
Thus, a decade or more has passed since these permits—and the pollution they allow the plants to discharge into Georgia’s waterways—were last examined by the state.
In the meantime, the Coosa River, where Hammond discharges, has again been named by the Georgia Water Coalition to its 2017 Dirty Dozen list, a report that spotlights ongoing threats to Georgia’s water and communities.
“Coal plants dump toxic heavy metals like arsenic, lead, selenium, boron, cadmium, and mercury into our waterways—polluting our drinking water, fishing areas, and local rivers and streams,” said Jonathan Levenshus, senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign in Georgia. “EPD must be held accountable for dragging its feet and for refusing to protect the health of our communities.”
The timely renewal of these permits is a linchpin of the Clean Water Act and an essential part of the EPD’s responsibilities to protect the public’s health—yet the agency has chosen instead to do nothing and to let these old, weak permits place the public’s health at risk.
“The last time permits for these coal-fired power plants were reviewed was when George W. Bush was still in the White House,” said Joe Cook, advocacy and communication coordinator with the Coosa River Basin Initiative. “In the case of Plant McIntosh, the permit has not been reviewed since the days of the Clinton administration. EPD has even failed to require proper monitoring of the discharges to determine what pollutants are going into our rivers.”
Georgia’s coal fleet is not only an ongoing environmental threat, but it’s also a drag on our economy: trying ensure these old plants adhere to new regulations, while also adjusting to the unstable market conditions surrounding fossil fuels, is expensive. Plant Hammond alone costs $94 per megawatt hour to operate — twice as much as it costs Georgia Power to buy power on the market, especially low-cost wind power from the Great Plains.
In fact, Georgia Power’s most recent long-term energy plan includes caps on spending to maintain these plants, as well as a process for the utility to work with the PSC staff to address retiring them.
“There are better, cleaner, cheaper ways to power our communities that would not endanger our public health,” said Robert B. Jackson, IV, lead attorney for the groups. “However, sometimes it takes a lawsuit to enforce the law.”
In addition to Sierra Club, other groups participating in the lawsuit are the Altamaha Riverkeeper, the Coosa River Basin Initiative, and the Savannah Riverkeeper.
*Coal Plants:
Bowen (exp. 6/30/2012, owned by Georgia Power)
Hammond (exp. 6/30/2012, owned by Georgia Power)
McIntosh (exp. 5/31/2004, owned by Georgia Power)
Scherer (exp. 11/30/2006, owned by Georgia Power)
Wansley (exp. 8/31/2011, owned by Georgia Power)
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About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 2.4 million members and supporters nationwide. In addition to creating opportunities for people of all ages, levels and locations to have meaningful outdoor experiences, the Sierra Club works to safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and litigation. For more information, visit http://www.sierraclub.org.
About GreenLaw
Greenlaw is a 501(c)(3) law firm that GreenLaw that advocates to preserve Georgia’s unique natural places and to enforce compliance with environmental law through the court system. GreenLaw was founded in 1992 by attorneys, law professors, and judges committed to providing community groups in Georgia with the legal and technical tools needed to protect their environment and public health. For more information, please visit www.greenlaw.org.
About Robert B. Jackson, IV, Esq.
Attorney Jackson is a sole practitioner in Atlanta, Georgia. His law practice includes primarily environmental and real property cases. He may be reached at 260 Peachtree Street – Suite 2200, Atlanta, Georgia, (404) 313-2039, or rbj4law@gmail.com