EPA orders Pa. power plant to reduce emissions
Responding to a petition from New Jersey officials, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday ordered a Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant to reduce its sulfur dioxide emissions by 81 percent over the next three years.
Responding to a petition from New Jersey officials, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday ordered a Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant to reduce its sulfur dioxide emissions by 81 percent over the next three years.
The order affects the Portland Generating Station in Mount Bethel, Pa., about ten miles southeast of Stroudsburg and just across the Delaware River from New Jersey.
The power station has two 50-year-old generators that produce about 400 megawatts of electricity and whose emissions contribute to New Jersey's health problems.
EPA says the two units are among the 44 percent of coal-fired generators in the country that do not have advanced pollution controls, such as scrubbers or catalysts, installed to limit emissions.
Ken Varhola, a spokesman for GenOn Energy Inc., the Houston company that owns the power station, said the company is currently reviewing the EPA's order and its implications.