At a joint meeting of three advisory groups this week, the Department of Environmental Protection unveiled its preliminary recommendations for changes to its proposal to reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants in response to pubic comments.

Members of DEP’s Citizens Advisory Council, Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee and DEP’s Mercury Rule Work Group attended.

DEP has so far counted over 10,934 comments submitted on the rule, but the overwhelming number were form letters, postcards and emails sent in response to mass solicitations from environmental groups.

DEP provided a very general overview of the comments and then outlined several preliminary changes it said it was considering to the rule, including:

· Counting mercury reductions as a result of coal washing as part of meeting the mercury rule;

· Allowing generating plant owners who replace or re-power their facilities to keep the mercury allowances they create to use with the new plants;

· Allowing plant owners to average their mercury emissions across multiple power plants they own in Pennsylvania to comply with the cap on mercury emissions (they must still meet the 80 and 90 percent reductions in Phase I and II of the rule); and

· Removing the preference for bituminous coal from the rule due to a concern about constitutionality.

DEP has not changed its opposition to incorporating a cap-and-trade provision in the final recommended rule in spite of the voluminous comments it received suggesting that provision be included saying, “It is a policy decision.”

DEP also said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency submitted comments saying it could not approve DEP’s mercury rule as written without making changes, including removing the exception DEP had proposed for Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle clean coal plants from the Phase I mercury reductions.

DEP expects to be in a position to share a final draft rule and its special Record of Decision document it was required to produce by the Environmental Quality Board with the Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee at their meeting on September 11 and with the DEP Citizens Advisory Council on September 19.

The final recommended rule is set to go to the Environmental Quality Board at its October 17 meeting.

DEP’s presentation from this week’s meeting is available online.

Mercury is an indirect threat to health. According to DEP, there is no health threat from breathing in mercury in ambient air. The health threat is from eating fish that may contain mercury deposited in water and ingested by the fish in their food chain.

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