Indiana's Old Coal Plants Getting Dirtier

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - "Pollution worsened at many of Indiana's oldest coal-fired power plants between 1995 and 2003, sullying regional air quality despite an overall decline in emissions by the state's power plants, a new report concludes. The report released Wednesday by Clear the Air, a Washington-based environmental coalition, blames the trend on federal rules that permit utilities to avoid cleaning up their dirtiest plants by purchasing pollution "credits" from utilities with cleaner-burning plants.

Brian Wright, the Hoosier Environmental Council's coal policy director, said that practice has led to growing pollution "hot spots" of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other lung-choking pollutants around the state's dirtiest 20 or so plants. "It creates big loopholes for utilities and that's why we're seeing plants in Indiana with significant emission increases," Wright said.

The report, based on data utilities reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ranks Indiana among the top 10 states in carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions. More than 90 percent of the state's electricity is generated at coal-fired plants. Wright said growing emissions at older plants, such as a Vectren power plant in southwestern Indiana's Warrick County and a Cinergy plant near Terre Haute, put stress on people with respiratory ailments such as asthma.

The emissions also make it more difficult for parts of the state to come into compliance with new ozone standards, he said. The report found that total sulfur dioxide emissions from Indiana power plants fell 10 percent between 1995 and 2003, although sulfur dioxide releases grew among 48 percent of the Hoosier power plants with historically high emissions of the pollutant. And while overall nitrogen oxide emissions dropped 26 percent from 1995 to 2003, 45 percent of the state's dirtiest plants increased their emissions of the smog-causing pollutant, the report concluded."

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