Groups: Maryland Agency Failing to Address Violations by Major Polluters in Baltimore...

Groups: Maryland Agency Failing to Address Violations by Major Polluters in
Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Areas

Over 1,000 Violations Reported To Agency and Not Addressed; Legal Action
Initiated to Force Action on Wheelabrator Incinerator in Baltimore and Mirant
Chalk Point Power Plant Outside D.C.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The same environmental groups
that joined forces with the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to
help get the agency more than $11 million in extra funds to enforce state and
federal clean air rules are now warning that the same state agency has failed
to take action on more than 1,400 separate pollution violations across
Maryland, including those at the Wheelabrator Incinerator in Baltimore and the
Mirant Chalk Point power plant on the Patuxent River in Prince George's County
right outside of Washington, D.C.

The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper,
Inc., and Clean Water Action, represented by the University of Maryland
Environmental Law Clinic, are filing a complaint in Maryland state court,
asking the judge to order the MDE to issue for the Wheelabrator incinerator a
Clean Air Act permit that was supposed to have been put in place place more
than a year ago by September 1, 2007. In a separate action, EIP and the
Chesapeake Climate Action Network sent a letter today notifying Mirant of the
groups' intent to sue over more than 1,400 violations of the Clean Air Act at
the Chalk Point power plant.

The groups emphasized that they are taking these actions reluctantly and only
after making repeated efforts to work with the MDE to take the necessary
actions to enforce the Clean Air Act.

Jennifer Peterson, lawyer, Environmental Integrity Project, said: "We have
been very slow to publicize our frustration until now, hoping that the new
administration in Annapolis would take a tougher stance on enforcement of the
Clean Air Act. We've uncovered significant violations of the Clean Air Act in
our review of Maryland's Clean Air program. Although we have shared our
findings with the state and helped them secure over $11 million dollars in
additional funding for the Clean Air program, the state has been largely
unresponsive to the serious issues we have brought to their attention."

Andy Fellows, Chesapeake regional director, Clean Water Action, said: "We feel
that we have waited long enough for an answer from MDE to our questions about
pollution from the Wheelabrator incinerator and other Maryland facilities that
still don't have Clean Air Act permits. These permits are long overdue, and
the issues we raise have real impacts on Maryland's waters, including the
Chesapeake Bay, in addition to the obvious impacts to public health."

Jane Barrett, director, University of Maryland Environmental Law Clinic, said:
"The fundamental building blocks for implementing the Clean Air Act and the
Clean Water Act are permits. MDE's failure to issue permits as required by law
in a timely manner undermines its compliance and enforcement responsibilities
and is a disservice to the citizens of the state."

The three major deficiencies identified by EIP in its review of the Maryland
Clean Air program are: the failure to issue Clean Air Act operating permits
for major polluters; inclusion of illegal provisions in operating permits; and
a reluctance to enforce the Clean Air Act and hold polluters accountable.

Clean Air Act operating permits are critical to ensure that facilities are
complying with the law. Without these permits, facilities are not required to
monitor and measure their emissions of air pollution, and both the state and
citizens have no way of knowing whether the facility is actually meeting the
emission limits they are subject to. According to EIP's review, two major
power plants in Maryland still do not have operating permits even though they
should have been issued nearly 10 years ago. A third power plant in the state
is operating with an expired permit.

Even more significantly, Maryland operating permits contain illegal provisions
and missing emission limits, which result in the dumping of hundreds of tons
of illegal emissions into the air in violation of the Clean Air Act.

THE WHEELABRATOR INCINERATOR AND MIRANT'S CHALK POINT

In addition to failing to respond to EIP objections to the illegal provisions
in the Wheelabrator draft permit, the MDE has not issued the final permit even
though the state agency was required to do so by September 1, 2007. MDE's
failure to issue final operating permits to major sources of air pollution
like the Wheelabrator incinerator when citizens submit comments on a draft
permit effectively prevents citizens from seeking review by the EPA. The
Clean Air Act provides citizens the right to seek review in state court to
compel MDE to issue a final operating permit, which is what the groups are now
doing in relation to the Wheelabrator incinerator.

The EIP investigation found that Chalk Point power plant is burning dirty,
residual fuel oil without required pollution controls for particulate matter
in violation of the Clean Air Act and Maryland law. According to data from
the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Chalk Point received over 187
million gallons of residual fuel oil from January 2005 to June 2007. Using
EPA data, EIP documented 1,430 separate violations of the Clean Air Act at the
Chalk Point facility since January 4, 2006.

Particulate matter is a mixture of very small particles, including organic
chemicals, metals, and ash, which can cause health and environmental problems.
Once inhaled, PM can affect the heart and lungs, and cause serious health
effects. Numerous scientific studies have linked PM exposure to increased
respiratory systems, such as irritation of the airways, coughing, and
difficulty breathing; decreased lung function; aggravated asthma; development
of chronic bronchitis; irregular heartbeat; heart attacks; and premature death
in people with heart or lung disease. The burning of the volume of dirty
residual fuel oil received by the Chalk Point facility would result in public
health costs of up to $101.6 million, according to EPA formulas. Per unit of
energy, the burning of residual fuel oil produces nearly 30 percent more
carbon dioxide emissions, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming,
than burning natural gas.

Although the Mirant Chalk Point violations were brought to the state's
attention in August 2008, no action was taken. Today, the groups are sending
a notice letter to Mirant announcing their intent to sue the company for
failure to comply with the Clean Air Act.

The details of the Wheelabrator court filing and the notice-of-intent letter
sent to Mirant are available online at http://www.environmentalintegrity.org.

ABOUT EIP

The Environmental Integrity Project (http://www.environmentalintegrity.org) is
a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization established in March of 2002 by former
EPA enforcement attorneys to advocate for effective enforcement of
environmental laws. EIP has three goals: 1) to provide objective analyses of
how the failure to enforce or implement environmental laws increases pollution
and affects public health; 2) to hold federal and state agencies, as well as
individual corporations, accountable for failing to enforce or comply with
environmental laws; and 3) to help local communities obtain the protection of
environmental laws.

Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper is a local grass-roots organization dedicated to
addressing Baltimore's water-quality issues. Its mission is to protect and
restore Baltimore Harbor and the greater Patapsco River and its tributaries
through enforcement, fieldwork, and citizen action in order to make the river
suitable for recreation, including fishing and swimming, to improve public
health, and to improve the health of the river ecosystem.

The Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots, nonprofit
organization dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming in Maryland,
Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Its mission is to educate and mobilize citizens
of this region in a way that fosters a rapid societal switch to clean energy
and energy-efficient products, thus joining similar efforts worldwide to halt
the dangerous trend of global warming. For more on current campaigns and an
exclusive multi-media climate blog, visit http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org.

Clean Water Action is an organization of 1.2 million members working to
empower people to take action to protect America's waters, build healthy
communities and to make democracy work for all of us. For 36 years Clean Water
Action has succeeded in winning some of the nation's most important
environmental protections through grassroots organizing, expert policy
research and political advocacy focused on holding elected officials
accountable to the public.

The Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Maryland School of Law
provides pro bono legal services to environmental organizations and other
clients concerned about environmental problems in Maryland, as well as issues
of national significance that affect the State's environment.

SOURCE Environmental Integrity Project, Washington, D.C.

Patrick Mitchell, +1-703-276-3266, or pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com, for the
Environmental Integrity Project, Washington, D.C.