os Castlegar News sow 18, 1987

~ ACID RAIN: U.S.

industry complains

SHIPPINGPORT, PA. (CP) — On one of the gauges in the control room at the Bruce Mansfield electrical plant, a worker has drawn a line with a pen. If the dial crosses the line, it means too much sulphur dioxide is escaping from the smokestacks that tower over this tiny town.

That rarely happens, however, because the plant is equipped with one of the most complete ant: systems ever installed in a coal-fired el plant. It's considered a show-piece in the utility industry's effort to comply with laws controlling acid rain.

Despite that, when plant managers and company executives take visitors through the plant their tone is hardly one of showing off its wonders or boasting about how clean the air is as a result of the laws and their investment.

Instead, they talk resentfully about how they were forced into the environmental controls in the 1970s before the utility industry was ready.

CREATES SLUDGE

They're brimming with complaints: the high cost of installing the equipment, the large amount of space it needs, the expense of solving problems, the operating and maintenance\ bills, and the worry about the large sulphur sludge pit they've created in the woods up the road.

“There's no question this was technology that was pretty much forced down the throats of the utility industry,” said Bob McWhorter, vice-president of Ohio Edison, one of five companies owning the plant.

“I have to say very honestly, many of our worst fears have been realized, especially in the case of this plant,” he added, complaining of unforeseen problems such as corrosion in the giant serubbers which remove sulphur dioxide from coal gas generated in the plant.

McWhorter tells of how one of every three dollars spent on the $1.4-billion U.S. plant goes to anti-pollution costs, how a third of the 982 workers are in anti-pollution jobs, and how 20 per cent of every bill to consumers is for anti-pollution measures.

Shaking his head, McWhorter wonders if this isn't enough.

To a lot of people, it isn’t. Some U.S. politicians, environmental groups and the Canadian government, among others, seek tougher acid rain controls in the United States.

SETS LIMIT

In practical terms, the controls would mean a tighter limit on the sulphur dioxide allowed out of smokestacks at plants like the one here on the banks of the Ohio River, 40 kilometres from Pittsburgh. The line on the gauge in the control room would have to be moved back.

At this plant, says superintendent Dan Bodor, they would probably meet-stricter federal standards with the current equipment.

That's not so at all the electrical plants in the United States, some of them owned by the same companies owning Bruce Mansfield and most of them united in industry coalitions opposed to tighter acid rain controls proposed in Congress.

The electrical industry has been battling Washington and was relieved last year when President Ronald Reagan endorsed the idea of coal-cl ig technology

Major sources \. of sulphur dioxide

rod o* Sites that release highest concentra- “~ }» tions of sulphur dioxide (more than ve 100 ToD Kiotons per your); primarily coal- * ® fired factories and power plants

Areas most sensitive to acid rain be- cause of a granite bedrock with little buffering capacity

before tougher standards are imposed.

As McWhorter tells it, the industry doesn’t want any tougher acid rain legislation until better, cheaper and smaller equipment is invented to keep sulphur dioxide from spewing out of the plants. That's the position Reagan

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endorsed during Prime Minister Brian Mul y's visit to Washington last spring. TOURS PLANT It was the central recommendation of acid rain envoys Drew Lewis, former U.S. transportation secretary, and Bill Davis, former Ontario premier.

Lewis and Davis toured the Bruce Mansfield plant as part of their year-long study of what to do to quell the Canadian government's demands for a reduction in U.S. sources of sulphur dioxide, which cause acid rain in Canada.

Reagan endorsed the principle of a $5-billion U.S. fund, recommended by Lewis and Davis, for five years worth of technology development in the United States, split 50-50 between Washington and private industry. Little has come of that endorsement.

Congress had already established a $750-million fund, channelled through the Department of Energy, for three years of coal-cl All of that money still hasn't been spent and results aren't expected for years.

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