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Enron Mail |
A little backround surrounding the TECO pollution problems at Gannon.
Rock ---------------------- Forwarded by Rockford Meyer/FGT/Enron on 01/14/2000 04:00 PM --------------------------- From: David Rosenberg on 01/14/2000 03:47 PM To: Rockford Meyer/FGT/Enron@ENRON cc: James Saunders/FGT/Enron@ENRON Subject: Letters from Tampa Paper Regarding TECO conversion - Good and Bad Couldn't remember if I had passed along copies of these letters to the editor from the Tampa Tribune. Dec 20, 1999 - 07:33 PM TECO is trying to do the right thing JOHN RAMIL At Tampa Electric, we're trying to do the right thing. Our goal is a challenging one - to meet the needs of our customers and operate a financially sound business in an environmentally responsible way. Even those with extreme viewpoints should agree that achieving a balance like this is never easy. But in our $1 billion agreement with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, we believe we've found a way. As with any major shift in thinking, the road to our environmental plan has been far from simple. Since early 1999, we have spent many, many hours in negotiation with two federal agencies, each, perhaps, with different objectives. In our dialogue with EPA and the Department of Justice, we invested a great deal of time and energy trying to find common ground on which to develop a long-range environmental strategy for our company. When this did not happen, the state of Florida stepped in, as was its right and duty as the agency with primary responsibility for implementation and enforcement of the environmental emission standards in question. As an agency ready to act, DEP helped us craft an agreement that actually takes us further than any of our negotiations with the federal entities. As a result, Tampa Electric has accomplished what we originally set out to do with the EPA - our nitrogen oxide emissions will drop by 85 percent by the year 2010 from 1997 levels. Using 1994 as the starting point, the ultimate reductions in nitrogen oxide will exceed 90 percent. These reductions are significant on their own, but even more so when you consider that Tampa Electric must simultaneously generate almost 40 percent more electricity for our customers over the same time period. But the federal government has said it is still not satisfied. They want penalties. In fact, that may be what this case is all about. This is a dramatic departure from EPA's position stated on Nov. 3, when they announced their suit against utilities around the country. Then, they said the purpose of the lawsuit was not to penalize, but to improve the air. That's exactly what Tampa Electric is doing, with the direction of the DEP, in a way that balances the environment, our customers and our employees. We're also a little confused as to why Hillsborough EPC chief Roger Stewart has criticized this landmark plan. Two years ago, when we announced a voluntary plan in concert with EPC to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 10 percent, Stewart was enthusiastic in his support. Now, a much higher 85 percent reduction draws his criticism. Like any business, we have many stakeholders for whose interests we are concerned. The environment is a critical one, but it is still one of many. We must also consider the effect of any major capital expenditures on our customers' rates, and we must make those expenditures in a way that is fiscally sound, so that we can continue to deliver reliable and economical electricity to meet our community's growing energy needs. The $1 billion commitment we have pledged to environmental improvements represents a huge expenditure, particularly for a company with $3 billion in overall assets. Yet we recognize the positive impact environmental improvements will have for our other stakeholders, including our customers in the Tampa Bay area. Toward this end, we are excited to have found a way to undertake the largest environmental cleanup effort Florida has seen in the last quarter-century. We're proud of what we will accomplish on behalf of Florida's environment, while keeping our prices low and our service high. That, we believe, is the right thing to do. an 3, 2000 - 05:03 PM Now for the Negative Side from January 3 On Nov. 3 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency brought a lawsuit against Tampa Electric Co. for violations of the Clean Air Act. EPA claims TECO made illegal major changes to its Big Bend and Gannon power plants. The changes allowed TECO to extend the operating life of two of the nation's dirtiest power plants and to produce more electricity and more air pollution without necessary permits. On Dec. 8 the Florida Department of Environmental Protection filed and settled a state lawsuit against TECO involving those same actions. Florida DEP Secretary David Struhs, in his Dec. 14 guest column (Commentary), makes fine-sounding arguments about why the TECO deal is good for Florida. However, the agreement DEP made doesn't match Struhs' description - only three of six Gannon units (built between 32 and 42 years ago) will close - units that were never built to run more than 25-30 years. The DEP agreement has many loopholes for TECO to slip through. Most important of the many conditions is that the Florida Public Service Commission must allow TECO to recover all its expenses for compliance from its customers. Struhs defends allowing TECO to keep sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emission credits; the former have a current value of about $200 per ton and can be sold to other utilities. The agreement allows both credits to be used by TECO in the future instead of requiring the utility to further reduce its pollution. And Struhs doesn't address the fact that the agreement protects TECO from having to comply with new air pollution standards for the next 10 years. What is lost in Struhs' version of the deal is that a basic principle of government enforcement is to remove the reward the violator has reaped from its illegal action. TECO has overhauled obsolete plants, overpolluted and profited financially by its actions. The DEP deal doesn't come close to evening the score. Struhs makes much of ``punitive payments totaling $10 million'' going to Florida rather than Washington. But $2 million to study Tampa Bay pollution and $8 million to research technologies TECO might use are not punitive and are grossly inadequate compared with the benefit TECO received through its actions. And it's TECO customers, not those responsible for the violations, who will pay. Legislation now before Congress would require electric utilities such as TECO to actually reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide 75 percent by 2005, limit mercury by 90 percent and reduce carbon dioxide emissions for the first time. Florida's congressional delegation, including representatives from the Tampa Bay region, needs to get serious about air pollution. Smog and fine particles are health threats that can no longer be ignored. Valuable natural resources such as Tampa Bay are at risk from air pollution that is nearby and is washed into the bay. Air pollution is both a local and national problem. Secretary Struhs has demonstrated that we can't trust our state officials to protect our health from power plant pollution. We need real reductions sooner, rules or agreements with real teeth. Maybe it's time for a national solution. - GAIL KAMARAS Tallahassee The writer is director of the Energy Advocacy Program of the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation. -- -- -- TECO is the dirtiest plant in the nation. It has had 30 years to achieve compliance but attempts to strike another good ol' boy deal to get another 10 years to pollute, but the feds object and try to protect locals. The water management district (the term is not really descriptive of what it does) voted to put the largest desalination plant near Big Bend plant. Both members of the Hillsborough County Commission in the group voted against it, but the majority - representing water needs from Pasco and Pinellas County - don't want it in their areas because it may not leave room for more development. They voted to put it in our area with promises of no impact on the bay or canals. A new wallboard plant is planned for a location near the Big Bend TECO plant and the desalination plant. Company officials also promise no pollution will leave the site. And oh, by the way, they will need lots of water! Cargill announces that it needs to double the size of its gypsum stack in order to operate for the next 30 years. The company says there is no danger to the environment! A consortium of phosphate companies has now announced that they want to put a liquid-sulfur plant near Big Bend. Again, promises of no odor or pollutants leaving the site. And again, they will need more water! My questions are: Who, if anyone, is studying the cumulative effects of all these actions? What plans are being made to ensure that there is no odor and that emissions do not leave the site? What protection is being included in the permits to ensure an immediate clean up response and shutdown of the facility in case of an accident? I do not believe there is anyone doing these things from a whole-community perspective. The addition of the few jobs that will be created by this potentially disastrous collection of industries does not justify the potential damage to the bay, our community and our children's future. Enough is enough! - RICHARD CLOY Apollo Beach -- -- -- Since 1998, Southwest Florida Water Management District has held monthly preapplication meetings on the Cone Ranch Dispersed Wells Project for Tampa Bay Water staff and consultants. During these meetings, new information related to this hotly debated wellfield are discussed, and Tampa Bay Water gains a better understanding of what will be required to obtain a pumping permit for the Cone Ranch wellfield. Citizens who organized in opposition to the Cone Ranch project were successful in obtaining the consultant-prepared preapplication meeting notes (approved by all attendees of the preapplication meetings). Unfortunately, the notes contain repetitive text, missing and incorrect meeting dates, apparent text deletions and poor definition of action items and responsibilities. In response to complaints about the lack of detail and accuracy, Tampa Bay Water responded that the reports were intended only ``to provide summaries of important discussion points'' and that the summaries were accurate. In effect, these ``accurate'' summaries prevented concerned citizens from sequentially reconstructing permitting developments at Cone Ranch and thereby limited public participation in the process. On Oct. 12, Tampa Bay Water General Manager Jerry Maxwell agreed to allow two citizens of this donor community to attend Cone Ranch preapplication meetings as observers. However, despite the fact that ongoing studies continue to provide new project feasibility information, no preapplication meeting notices have been provided to these two citizens. In addition, Tampa Bay Water has denied our requests to videotape the preapplication meetings so that the proceedings can be shared with a growing multicounty-opposition base. This unwillingness to share with the public information obtained at public expense is, unfortunately, consistent with many observations made by citizens and elected officials at the June meeting of the State Water Resources Committee. How long will Tampa Bay Water's board of directors require us to endure this level of disrespect and manipulation? - CINDY RYAN-BROWN Plant City
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