What's New
Victory! In December, the Environmental Quality Commission voted to require Portland General Electric (PGE) to cut mercury pollution from its coal-fired power plant near Boardman in Morrow County. PGE will install pollution controls to cut mercury emissions 90 percent by 2012.
Background
Mercury is a toxic substance that threatens children’s health and has already contaminated the Willamette River to such levels that people from Eugene to Portland are warned to limit the number of fish they eat from the river. Nationally, the largest industrial source of mercury is coal-fired power plants. Oregon has only one such plant, operated by Portland General Electric (PGE) in Boardman, near the Eastern end of the Columbia Gorge.
The Clean Air Act requires the U.S. EPA to issue rules to cut mercury pollution. Despite Environment Oregon urging the strongest possible protections, in 2005, the Bush administration issued weak rules requiring much smaller mercury reductions than available technology allows. The federal rules also allowed companies to trade mercury pollution, so that power plants could choose to purchase “pollution credits” instead of reducing pollution going into the local environment.
In early 2006, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) proposed the same federal rules for PGE’s coal plant. Environment Oregon objected to the proposal, and joined Friends of the Columbia Gorge, the Oregon Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Northwest Environmental Defense Center in urging DEQ to adopt stronger rules.
In response, DEQ staff proposed stronger rules, requiring 90 percent pollution reductions by 2012. In December, the Environmental Quality Commission voted to enact the pollution reductions. Unfortunately, the new rules still allow limited trading of toxic mercury pollution.
