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Pact ends coal at Salem plant in 2014

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February 08, 2012|By Justin A. Rice

The owners of Salem’s power plant, already slated to shut down in two years, have agreed that the facility will never burn coal after 2014, even if it changes hands, under conditions of a settlement reached in a federal lawsuit.

Dominion Energy Inc., the Virginia-based owner of Salem Harbor Station, settled the lawsuit filed by the Conservation Law Foundation and North Shore-based HealthLink. The settlement ends a 20-year campaign to close the power plant.

The agreement states that the plant cannot burn coal after 2014, the year Dominion has been planning to shut down the power plant. But the settlement also states that any potential buyer of the plant also cannot burn coal at the facility.

Dominion or anyone who buys the plant can seek to re-power it or construct a new electric generating unit not fueled by coal, according to the settlement. Last week, a New Jersey company, Footprint Power, announced that it is seeking to convert the plant to a natural gas facility.

The two environmental groups filed a lawsuit in US District Court in 2010 that alleged that the 60-year-old coal-fired power plant violated the Clean Air Act more than 300 times in a five-year span.

Though Dominion admitted no wrongdoing, the company will pay $275,000 for a supplemental environmental project to be implemented in Salem and at least two adjacent communities.

“This outcome sends a signal to coal plant operators everywhere that they cannot avoid costs through noncompliance with the Clean Air Act,’’ Jonathan Peress, vice president and director of the Conservation Law Foundation’s Clean Energy and Climate Change program, said in a statement.