In an attempt to go “above and beyond” federal regulations, sixof Massachusetts’ oldest — and dirtiest — power plants will beretrofitted or rebuilt and will switch to cleaner burning naturalgas after reaching a voluntary agreement this week with stateofficials. The six plants, owned by five companies, vowed to cuttheir emissions in half by 2003, a move that has followed growingpolitical and grassroots pressure throughout Massachusetts.

The final blow may have come last week when a Harvard Universityreport revealed that two of state’s facilities — Salem HarborStation and Brayton Point — may be triggering thousands of asthmaattacks and hundreds of deaths every year.

Dubbed the “Filthy Five” utilities by environmental groups andeven state regulators, the utilities joined together andvoluntarily agreed to Gov. Paul Cellucci’s demands made within thepast two months. Cellucci threatened the utilities with harshpenalties and stricter regulations if they did not upgrade theirfacilities.

Under the agreement, the six facilities will switch from coal tonatural gas and use new technologies to improve pollution control.The changes are expected to reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfurdioxide emissions by 50%, and also reduce carbon dioxide and sootemissions.

The facilities and their owners are Sithe Energy’s MysticStation, Charlestown, built in the 1950s; NRG Energy Inc.’s MontaupStation in Somerset; Pacific Gas & Electric’s two facilities,Brayton Point in Somerset and Salem Harbor in Salem; NortheastUtilities’ Mount Tom in Holyoke; and Southern Energy New England’sCanal Electric in Sandwich.

Sithe Energy is the only company that will build a new facility— a $1 billion gas-fired plant to replace the Mystic Stationfacility, and it is expected to open in the summer of 2002. MysticStation still will be used, but only as a backup and also will beretrofitted to burn gas. All of the other plants will beretrofitted to burn gas. Work is expected to begin later this year.

The Mystic Station Redevelopment Project, as it is called, willhave a gas-fired combined-cycle electric power generation facilityto mostly replace the existing Mystic Station, a 1,000 MW electricgenerating facility. Sithe plans to use state-of-the-art “G”combustion turbine technology, and is considering either SiemensWestinghouse or Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as the potentialsupplier. The supplier choice will result in the project having atotal nominal electric power output rating of 1,500 MW, or 2,550MW, depending upon final equipment selection.

According to state officials, expanding capacity at the MysticStation site “provides a unique opportunity to meet the region’senergy needs using an existing site and infrastructure, and toprovide improvements to operation of the existing Mystic Stationunits.” The project will be supplied with gas from a new 20-inchdiameter pipeline to nearby Distrigas’s liquefied natural gasterminal. The pipeline also will give the project access to severalother supply options.

Together, the six facilities are responsible for 90% of thepower plant pollution in Massachusetts, according to theMassachusetts Public Interest Research Group, a consumer interestorganization. But the natural gas will change that, said officials.Emissions from the plants could drop by as much as 89,000 tons ayear, which is equivalent to taking 750,000 vehicles off the road,according to environmental groups. In the Harvard Universityreport, researchers estimate that Salem Harbor Station and BraytonPont may be linked to 43,000 asthma attacks and an estimated 159premature deaths every year.

“The people of Massachusetts can breathe a little easier,”Cellucci said. “We will clean up the Filthy Five.”

Greg Butler, vice president of Northeast Utilities, said therewould have been “hell to pay” if the five companies had notcomplied with the governor’s demands.

“The governor really did a Herculean task,” Butler said. As partof Massachusetts’ utility deregulation, 18 other power plants arescheduled to be built, but because there will be more plants,Cellucci predicted that consumers’ electric bills will not increasedrastically to cover the facility cleanup.

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