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Federal Utility CEO: Coal Plants Not Reopening Under Trump

The CEO of the nation’s biggest public utility said Tuesday that the agency isn’t going to reopen coal-fired power plants under President Donald Trump, who has promised a comeback for the downtrodden coal industry.

Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Bill Johnson said he thinks very little will actually change for the federal utility under Trump.

TVA has said it’s on track to cut its carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. By the end of 2018, the utility will have retired five of its original 11 coal-fired power plants.

Trump, meanwhile, has begun repealing President Barack Obama-era environmental regulations aimed at reducing pollution from mining and burning coal. He has promised to repeal and already ordered a review of the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s centerpiece push to curb climate change by limiting carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants.

Johnson said the retirement of many of TVA’s coal plants was the cheapest way to serve customers, which include more than 9 million people in seven southeastern states. Natural gas prices, not regulation, caused the recent downturn for coal, Johnson said.

“Our statutory duty is to produce electricity at the lowest feasible rate,” Johnson said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And when we decided to close the coal plants, that was the math we were doing. We weren’t trying to comply with the Clean Power Plan or anything else. What’s the cheapest way to serve the customer? It turned out to be retiring those coal plants.”

Johnson acknowledged that Trump could try to change the direction of the agency. By May, Trump can fill five of nine TVA board slots to establish a new majority. The U.S. Senate confirms them.

TVA hasn’t had direct discussions with the administration about the agency’s direction or been invited to meet top administration officials yet, Johnson said.

As a federal employee, Johnson said that he cannot comment on Trump’s efforts to peel back U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other coal-related regulations.

Among those, Trump has moved to end a moratorium on the sale of coal mining leases on federal lands, and he signed a measure to block an Obama-era regulation that aimed to prevent coal mining debris from being dumped into nearby streams.

Johnson said he recalls “cinders falling from the sky” and not being able to see across the street when he lived in Pittsburgh in his younger years.

“If we look at the history of the environment in this country, and whether it’s improved or not since the creation of the EPA, I believe that we can say that it has improved dramatically,” Johnson said.

Appalachian Power to Close 3 Coal-Fired Plants

Three coal-fired power plants in West Virginia have shut down operations.

Media outlets report that Appalachian Power’s Kanawha River Power Station at Glasgow, the Kammer Power Station near Moundsville and the Phillip Sporn Power Station at New Haven were closed Sunday.

Appalachian Power had announced in 2011 that it planned to close the plants, along with three coal-fired plants in Virginia, Ohio and Indiana. The company had said it would be cost-prohibitive to equip them to comply with new federal emission standards for mercury and other hazardous air pollutants. Another coal-fired plant inVirginia is being converted to natural gas.

In March, the company sent notices regarding the West Virginia plant closures to the state and to employees.

W.Va.'s AG to Argue EPA Standards in Federal Court

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s office will present oral arguments before a U.S. Court of Appeals Thursday fighting the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emission standards.

The proposed standards were released for comment last summer by the federal EPA. They would require states across the country to reduce their carbon emissions by 30 percent in 15 years, focusing particularly on emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Thursday Morrisey’s office will present arguments in from of the U.S. District Court of Appeals in D.C., leading the effort for a bi-partisan group of states.

West Virginia’s lawsuit claims the proposed regulations are illegal because emissions from coal-fired plants are already regulated under a federal hazardous air pollutant program. Morrisey said Wednesday the Clean Air Act prohibits double regulation of such emissions.

“So, we’re trying to argue that the court should provide relief to us now and not go through years of court cases needlessly spending money,” he said.

Twelve other states have joined West Virginia in the legal fight against the proposed rules. They include other coal producing states like Kentucky and Wyoming.

WVU Researchers Ask: Are Lead Poisoned Vultures the New Canary in a Coal Mine?

A new study out of West Virginia University finds that lead poisoning in vultures is way more prevalent than expected. Researchers say the source of the lead is ammunition and coal-fired power plant emissions – prompting one researcher to liken vultures to the canaries miners once used to gauge if a coal mine was safe or not.

Finding Lead

“Bone acts as a sink,” said doctor of veterinary medicine, Jesse Fallon. He explained that bodies can mistake lead for calcium and suck it into the bone where it will stay for a long time, even years.

Fallon is the Director of Veterinary Medicine for the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia which is a nonprofit that treats and rehabilitates injured, ill, or orphaned wild birds. Through this work and ecotoxicology training, Fallon has become an expert on lead poisoning.

"The presence of lead in these vultures is indicative of a threat that humans face," said researcher and now wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, Todd Katzner. "We view these vultures as indicators, as canaries in the coal mine."

He was involved in the recent vulture study helping researchers understand the physiological ramifications of lead exposure, and how lead moves through the body and where to look for it.

That’s why Shannon Behmke cut into the femur bones of just over 100 vulture carcasses – to look for lead.

“Reading more of the literature I understood that most of these vultures would have lead exposure or signs of lead exposure within their organs, but the extent to which we found it in the femurs was incredible,” Behmke said.

Looking for the Source

Behmke, the lead author of the study, found evidence of significant lead exposure in every bone she examined, which indicates persistent exposure throughout the birds’ lives. Vultures typically live about ten years, so this study is an indicator of environmental exposures over the last decade. But that’s not all she was able to determine.

“We did isotope ratio analysis,” Behmke said. “It pretty much gives ideas of where the sources could be of this lead. And what we found were isotope ratios similar to those found in lead ammunition and also lead emission from coal fired power plants.”

Shannon Behmke, lead author on study of lead exposure in vultures.

There were a couple other sources, and isotope ratio analysis of lead is an inexact science, but Behmke says ammunition and coal-fired power plants seem to be the major sources of lead.

The New Canaries

“The presence of lead in these vultures is indicative of a threat that humans face,” said researcher and now wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, Todd Katzner. “We view these vultures as indicators, as canaries in the coal mine.”

Katzner points out that vultures are obviously breathing the emissions that we breath. West Virginia had coal-fired generating units at 20 locations in 2005. Three have been retired, and American Electric Power says three more are supposed to go off line next month.

Katzner also says it’s also important to think about lead ammunition, especially in a state that harvested about 40,000 bucks during last year’s firearms season alone. Vultures often eat discarded gut piles. Most of those animals were killed with lead ammunition. Since that lead is making its way into the birds, Katzner says, chances are, it’s also probably making its way onto our tables. But even low levels of lead are dangerous.

Effects of Lead Exposure

Fallon explains that low levels of lead exposure can affect the body neurologically, in tissue and organs, and by impairing reproductive abilities. He explains that higher levels of lead exposure can cause anemia and neurological injury which can lead to blindness, seizures, weakness and even death. Fallon says this is certainly true for birds, but also for humans – especially children who are developing a nervous system.

The Centers for Disease Control reported that “at least 4 million households today have children living in them that are being exposed to high levels of lead.” CDC says no safe blood lead level in children has been identified. And since lead can affect nearly every system in the body, and leave no obvious symptoms, it frequently goes unrecognized. In a recent report the CDC wrote that compelling evidence shows that low levels of lead exposure are associated with IQ deficits, attention-related behaviors, and poor academic achievement.

EPA Reaches Final Day of Public Comment on Proposed Carbon Emission Rule

Monday is the final day the federal Environmental Protection Agency will accept comments on their proposed rule to limit carbon emissions from coal fired power plants.

The EPA announced the rule in June of this year aimed at cutting CO2 emissions for the country by 30 percent by 2030. Individually if the rule were approved as is, West Virginia would have to cut its emissions by 15 percent compared to 2012 measurements.

At the time it was announced, state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman said the new standard would force West Virginia to burn less coal and replace it with another energy source.

A report issued earlier this year by West Virginia University’s Center for Energy & Sustainable Development and other partners suggested the state focus on energy efficiency and increasing the use of natural gas to help meet the new standard.

The EPA is accepting comments until the end of the day today. Those comments are being collected electronically.

Governor Tomblin has scheduled a press conference for 3 p.m. Monday afternoon to discuss the state’s comments on the proposed rule.