Tag: xcel

City’s Growth Tied to Superfund Site

  • This beach and its surrounding area is one of 409 contaminated sites on the EPA's National Priorities List in the eight Great Lakes states. The sign tells people to wash their skin immediately if they come into contact with the tars and oils washing up on shore. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Ashland, Wisconsin is a small city along the coast of western Lake Superior. It was once a town that thrived on an industrial economy. Today the town is living with a legacy of pollution, and people are fighting over how to clean it up. Ashland’s mayor says he’s not giving up on the city’s future. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill has more:

Transcript

Ashland, Wisconsin is a small city along the coast of western Lake Superior. It was once a town
that thrived on an industrial economy. Today the town is living with a legacy of pollution, and
people are fighting over how to clean it up. Ashland’s mayor says he’s not giving up on the city’s
future. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill has more:


Ashland, Wisconsin, sits on Chequamegon Bay. It’s a wide curve of gently sloping land on the
south shore of Lake Superior. There used to be a busy port here. Ships moved in and out, loaded
with iron ore, lumber, and coal.


But those ships are gone. Ashland’s industry is gone, and the town is trying to create an economy
based on tourism.


But the bay is polluted. The waves lapping gently on the shore carry a thin film of oily scum.
Bright yellow signs warn people not to wade in the water or run their boats in the bay. A year ago,
the EPA named this part of the bay a Superfund site.


It’s not the kind of place that’s likely to attract tourists. But that’s exactly what Ashland’s mayor
wants to do.


“This lakefront is really underdeveloped. And in a service-based economy like we’re at, we could
really be turning some money for our community here.”


Fred Schnook wants to double the size of the city marina. He wants to turn the old sewage
treatment plant into a museum.


“There could be retail shops, there could be a marine repair shop, to have all these boats that we
have here fixed.”


Ashland is within a short day’s drive of Chicago, Milwaukee, and other major Midwestern cities.
The tourism potential is huge.


But a gas plant polluted the bay years ago, and there’s no money to clean it up.


For seventy years, a company made gas to heat and light Ashland’s homes. Most cities had gas
plants like this. The raw material was coal or petroleum. By-products were tars and oils in
various thicknesses. Some of the waste was as solid as roofing tar, some was as runny as used
engine oil. The gas company sold some of the by-products to other industries. It dumped the rest
into Chequamegon Bay. The plant closed years ago.


“So we have the legacy of history.”


Jerry Winslow is an engineer with Xcel Energy, formerly called NSP. NSP bought the
manufactured gas plant in 1976. Now it’s used as a place to repair equipment.


Winslow says other industries along the bay, including a city landfill, added their own pollution
over the years.


“Manufactured gas plant being one issue. Wood treating being another issue with the same kind of
coal tar products. Landfill, which gets a little bit of everything.”


Because it owns the manufactured gas plant, Xcel will probably have to pay a big chunk of the
eventual clean-up cost. But Xcel says if the old city dump is part of the problem, Ashland itself
should bear some of the cost.


Eight years ago the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources began studying the pollution
problems here. The tars and oils can cause cancer. And animal studies suggest they might cause
infertility.


Xcel and the DNR worked together to cover places on land where the pollutants were bubbling to
the surface. And Xcel is slowly pumping the tars out of the deep aquifer that runs under the old
coal plant and into the bay.


The problem right now is the bay itself. The pollutants have settled on the bottom, and whenever
there’s a northeast wind, they get churned up and rise to the surface.


Since the bay is listed as a Superfund site, the EPA is in charge. The federal agency says Xcel will
have to pay for most of the cleanup. So the EPA wants Xcel to figure out how the pollution should
be cleaned up.


Ashland’s mayor, Fred Schnook, doesn’t like that idea. He says Xcel is looking for the cheapest
way to clean up the site.


“Xcel’s fighting any kind of dredging that has to take place. Some of the options include capping
and other remediation that would be a heck of a lot cheaper than dredging. And again, it’s
understandable what Xcel is doing, they have a profit motive at stake here.”


Schnook says he’s looking out for Ashland. He says Xcel doesn’t have the same motivation to
move quickly and do a thorough cleanup.


But pollution cleanups only get more expensive as time goes by. Jerry Winslow has worked on
several other manufactured gas sites. He says they weren’t so complicated to clean up, because
they weren’t sitting next to a lake.


“You don’t have to worry about the fish, the terns, the birds, the whole ecosystem, the worms, etc.
etc. Here we need to worry about that.”


Winslow says Xcel won’t have plans for a clean-up for at least two more years.


But Ashland mayor Fred Schnook says he’ll push the company to move faster. And he’ll be
keeping a close eye on its work. He says Ashland’s future depends on a clean Chequamegon Bay.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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Power Company Switches to Natural Gas

The Bush administration is making it easier for coal-burning power plants to avoid upgrading to modern pollution prevention equipment. But in some cases the power companies are bowing to public pressure to reduce pollution anyway. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Alquist reports:

Transcript

The Bush administration is making it easier for coal-burning power plants to avoid upgrading to
modern pollution prevention equipment. But in some cases the power companies are bowing to
public pressure to reduce pollution anyway. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Alquist
reports:


Elizabeth Dickinson didn’t get any kind of warning about air quality in her neighborhood. She
really didn’t need one. She says couldn’t avoid noticing the pollution in the air.


“A couple years ago, there was almost a week where the air quality in my neighborhood was so
bad that you literally couldn’t sleep. There was a burning back in my throat.”


Dickinson lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, not too far from one of the oldest coal burning plants
operated by Minnesota’s leading supplier of electricity, Xcel Energy.


She and many other people have been actively working to pressure the company to address the air
quality problems they believe are caused by Xcel’s older plants.


And in a rare move among power companies, Xcel Energy is doing something. In May 2002, the
company put forth a voluntary proposal to convert its two oldest coal burning plants to natural
gas. The oldest plant, Riverside, lies in northeast Minneapolis.


(sound of power plant)


Since it opened in 1911, the Riverside plant has changed very little when it comes to emitting
pollutants. It was grandfathered in under the Clean Air Act of 1970 – which means the plant isn’t
subject to federal environmental mandates.


It didn’t have to install modern pollution control devices unless it upgraded the plant. And now,
under the Bush administration’s new rules, even upgrading it might not trigger the threshold that
would require it to reduce emissions.


“For a little bit over two years, one of the first things I was charged with was to look at all the
emissions in and around southeast Minneapolis and Riverside plant came back as a sore thumb
because of the glaring emissions.”


Justin Eibenholtz is the environmental coordinator for a Minneapolis neighborhood improvement
group. He says that’s why Excel’s decision to convert Riverside to natural gas is such a big deal.
Once it’s converted, the old plant will cut air pollutants by 99 percent. Mercury emissions will be
completely eliminated.


Neighborhood groups such as Eibenhotz’s and big environmental groups alike are praising
Excel’s decision. The Great Lakes Program Coordinator for the Sierra Club, Emily Green, says
the reduction in emissions will mean a better quality of life for residents who live in the Great
Lakes region. That’s because the mercury and other pollutants that were emitted from the plant
often ended up in the Great Lakes through a process called air deposition. That meant pollutants
got into the food chain and contaminated fish.


“The Great Lakes are like a giant bathtub with a very, very slow drain, so that what we put into
the Great Lakes stays there.”


Green says the pollutants don’t go away. They just end up contaminating the air and the water.


“We swim in them, we drink them, you know, the fish swim around in them, and so it’s very,
very important that we recognize, despite their size, how fragile the Great Lakes are.”


Besides polluting the lakes, the air pollution drifted for hundreds of miles, causing health
problems. The effects are already apparent. An independent report commissioned from the
Environmental Protection Agency says pollution from the oldest and dirtiest power plants kills
more than thirty thousand Americans each year – almost twice the number of people killed by
drunk driving and homicide combined.


While the natural gas conversion won’t reduce the level of mercury in the Great Lakes
immediately, it will mean it won’t add to the problem. It also means a more efficient use of a
fossil fuel.


Ron Ellsner is the project manager for Xcel’s proposal.


“The new combined cycles that we’re going to install are on the order of 30 percent more
efficient than what our current coal cycle is. They do that much better a job converting that
energy into fuel into electricity.”


It comes at a cost, though. Xcel estimates converting its Minneapolis and Saint Paul plants will
amount to one billion dollars. By Xcel’s estimate, it’ll be the most expensive power plant
conversion in the history of the United States, and the cost of the conversion will be passed on to
its customers.


That’s fine by Elizabeth Dickinson. She says she, and her neighbors, were paying for it in other
ways already, such as additional healthcare costs. Dickinson says the estimated extra 15 cents a
day for her power bill will be worth it.


“You know, these are the hidden costs of coal burning and they’re huge, and you know, they’re
usually left out of these equations and we’re saying they can’t be left out any longer, they just
can’t be, because it’s too high a cost for us as a society.”


Government regulators still have to approve the plan. Minnesota’s utilities commission is
holding a final round of public hearings before voting for or against Xcel’s proposal to convert to
natural gas.


If the conversion is approved, it will likely put pressure on other power companies in the Great
Lakes region to do the same.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Ann Alquist.

Related Links

POWER COMPANY SWITCHES TO NATURAL GAS (Short Version)

A power company in the Great Lakes region is dramatically reducing pollution at two of its power plants. The move could prompt other power companies to do the same. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Alquist reports:

Transcript

A power company in the Great Lakes region is dramatically reducing pollution at two of
its power plants. The move could prompt other power companies to do the same. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Alquist reports:

Minnesota’s largest supplier of electricity, Xcel Energy, has submitted a voluntary
proposal to convert its two oldest, and dirtiest, coal burning plants to natural gas. The
cost of the conversion – one billion dollars – will be passed on to Xcel’s customers.

It will mean a 99 percent reduction in emissions – and mercury emissions will be
eliminated. The plant itself will undergo some changes, with some of the taller structures
no longer marring the skyline.

Ron Ellsner is the project manager for Xcel’s proposal.

“Cleaning up some of the older equipment that will be abandoned, we hope it has a
positive impact on the landscape for our city and for our neighbors.”

If government regulators approve the proposal, it will likely put pressure on other power
companies in the Great Lakes region to do the same.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Ann Alquist.

Related Links