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Federal judge tells Ameren to install pollution controls at 2 Mo. coal plants

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Federal judge tells Ameren to install pollution controls at 2 Mo. coal plants

Ameren Missouri plans to appeal a U.S. district court judge's ruling that the utility must install pollution controls at two of its coal-fired power plants.

The Sept. 30 ruling from Judge Rodney Sippel of the Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division, gives the Ameren Corp. subsidiary 4.5 years to install scrubbers at the Rush Island power plant to cut sulfur dioxide, or SO2, emissions. The ruling also gives the utility three years to install similar pollution control technology at the nearby Labadie Energy Center.

The 1,218-MW Rush Island plant has two units, both of which began operating in the mid-1970s. The four units at the nearly 2,500-MW Labadie Energy Center began operating in the early 1970s. Arch Coal Inc.'s Black Thunder mine in Campbell County, Wyo., has been the largest single source of coal for both plants in 2019, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.

The directive is meant to bring Ameren Missouri, known legally as Union Electric Co., into compliance with the Clean Air Act. Sippel found in January 2017 that Ameren Missouri had violated the act when it made boiler upgrades to Rush Island unit 1 in 2007 and unit 2 in 2010 without obtaining a preconstruction permit. The act's prevention of significant deterioration provisions require sources including power plants to obtain a permit and install state-of-the-art pollution controls when making major modifications to prevent air pollution increases.

Since the 2017 finding, Sippel heard from the utility and environmental advocates about how to remedy the issue.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had asked that Ameren Missouri be required to get a prevention of significant deterioration, or PSD, permit for Rush Island and propose flue gas desulfurization scrubbers as the appropriate permit technology. The agency also asked that Ameren Missouri be required to meet an emissions limitation and address ton-for-ton excess emissions from Rush Island by installing pollution control technology on the Labadie Energy Center.

Ameren Missouri argued that it did not have fair notice of the EPA's legal interpretations and that there is no evidence of harm created by its SO2 emissions. The company further said it has already decreased its emissions, that it should have had the chance to apply for a much less stringent "minor permit," and that the expense of installing scrubbers is unduly burdensome.

However, Sippel said that by making major modifications without satisfying the requirements of the Clean Air Act, the company "reaped significant financial benefits." According to the company's 2011 estimates, installing wet flue gas desulfurization scrubbers at Rush Island would cost between $650 million and $960 million.

Judge: Ameren deferred costs 'that it will never have to fully repay'

"Ameren deferred these costs for more than ten years at the expense of downwind communities that it will never have to fully repay," Sippel wrote. "Instead, I may only order remediation enough to account for the total amount of excess emission released by Ameren, a remedy that is more than a decade late, but which is closely tailored to the harm suffered by these communities."

Sippel ultimately directed Ameren Missouri to apply for and obtain the applicable Clean Air Act permit from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources for Rush Island and to propose wet flue gas desulfurization as the required control technology for the plant.

Ameren Missouri must also meet an emissions limitation of 0.05 pound SO2/MMBtu at Rush Island and install and use dry sorbent injection technology or another, more effective control technology at Labadie until it reduces pollution from Labadie in an amount equal to the excess emissions from Rush Island.

Sippel said the installation of controls at Labadie is not a penalty for Ameren Missouri's violation of the Clean Air Act but rather an attempt to put things where they would have been had the company complied with PSD program requirements from the start.

"The ton-for-ton reduction at Labadie directly remediates the public harm Ameren has caused and reverses the unjust gain Ameren has enjoyed from its violation of the Clean Air Act at Rush Island," the judge said.

Ameren: Court misapplied law

Ameren Missouri Chairman and President Michael Moehn reiterated the company's belief that the court misapplied and misinterpreted Missouri law and recent Supreme Court rulings regarding administrative law.

"Air quality monitors at Rush Island Energy Center demonstrate we fully comply with federal air quality standards, and SO2 emissions are lower now than before the projects at issue occurred. New Source Review cases are very complicated, and it is not uncommon for courts of appeals to disagree with legal rulings made by trial courts," Moehn said in a statement. "We believe we acted appropriately at all times and look forward to presenting those arguments to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals."